CHENNAI: As much as 49.5% of the technicians and junior engineers recruited for the Southern railway in 2018 are from the Hindi-speaking States. The information was revealed in a reply given by the Union Railway Minister Piyush Goyal to Madurai MP S Venkatesan in the Lok Sabha on Thursday.
Of the total 3,730 technicians and junior engineers posted in Southern railway 1,846 persons have written the examination in Hindi, while 536 (14%) persons wrote in Malayalam, 407 (10.9 %) persons wrote in Tamil. Only 517 (13.8%) persons have written examinations in English.
The Southern railway's jurisdiction spread over Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Puducherry, and a few districts in Andhra Pradesh.
When a similar controversy was raised in the recruitment of technicians at Golden Rock Workshop, Tiruchy, the Railways reasoned that this was because most of the job aspirants from the southern states are over-qualified as they hold bachelor degrees in engineering or diploma certificates. As per the rules of the railway recruitment boards, over-qualified candidates are not considered for these posts.
These technical posts require only ITI (Industrial training institutes) certificates, which most of the candidates from the north Indian states have.
However, even as the southern states have better educational levels, the clamour for government jobs is no less than in the Northern parts. This is evident when last year over 4,000 MBA, M.Phil and BE graduates recently applied for the sanitary workers' posts in the State secretariat. However, the railways' rule disqualifies candidates from the state as they are over-qualified.
Venkatesan said that at least 90% must be reserved for the people from the respective states where the post is based in the central government organisations.
The Railway Recruitment Board in Chennai conducts examinations to fill the posts in Chennai, Tiruchy, Salem divisions, and the board in Thiruvananthapuram recruits for Madurai division Thiruvananthapuram, and Palakkad divisions.
In contrast to the technicians and junior engineers posts, only 10 of the 908 assistant loco pilots recruited in 2018 wrote the exam in Hindi. The data given by the union minister says 333 persons have mentioned Tamil as their choice of language and 291 English.