Railway board likely to conduct exams in April

New Delhi: The long wait for over two crore applicants of Railway Recruitment Board (RRB) Non-Technical Popular Categories (NTPC) group-D posts is soon going to end as the Indian Railways is likely to conduct the examination in the first week of April.
However, the date for the examination is yet to be announced, but sources close to the RRB have confirmed that the board has almost completed the selection process of the examination conducting agency and it is likely to conduct the examination in April. The applicants have been waiting since January 2019 to write their examination. A senior RRB official told The Sunday Guardian: “Very soon, we are going to announce the name of the examination conducting agency and once the process is done, the RRB will also publish the examination date. Most probably, the examination for RRB NTPC group D posts will be conducted in the first week of April.” Asked what caused delay in conducting an examination, the same RRB official said: “The railway board received little over two crore applications against the recruitment notice which was issued to fill one lakh group D officials’ posts under the NTPC and such kind of inflow of applicants was unexpected. The higher number of applications and delay in finalising the name of the examination conducting agency are the two prominent reasons for the delay.” Puzzled with the delay in the examination, many students have complained that the RRB earns huge money out of application fees which was Rs 500 for general candidates and Rs 250 for reserve category applicants.
Abhishek Kumar, an applicant from Bihar, told The Sunday Guardian: “I think the Indian Railways is running at a loss and the notice for filling of one lakh posts may be the quick earning technique opted by the RRB which holds an examination for recruiting officials for the Indian Railways. In my view, the math is simple that the RRB has received almost Rs 1,000 crore by way of examination fee from over 2 crore applicants and their motive is fulfilled.” Since the examination date is yet to come, many applicants even filed RTI to know the reason behind the delay in the announcement of the examination date. One such applicant, Pradeep Singh, told The Sunday Guardian: “When I filed an RTI, first, the response took an unusually long time and then, the RRB responded with a reply to my RTI that the board is not aware what exactly is causing a delay in conducting examination.” More than 2.4 crore candidates had applied for both RRC Group D and RRB NTPC vacancies announced for more than 1.35 lakh posts in various departments of the Indian Railways, one of the largest employers in the world. As many as 1.26 crore applications were submitted for more than 35,000 NTPC vacancies, while over 1.15 crore applications have been received for more than one lakh NTPC posts.