Hundreds of government job aspirants have taken to the streets, and railway stations to protest against RRB NTPC. Some of the places where media covered the protests include the Patna railway station, however as per photos and status updates on twitter and other social media platforms, the display of unrest can be seen in more places. Allegedly, the protesters were met with lathicharge and tear gas.
What is the RRB NTPC protest about?
Candidates are saying that railways have shortlisted fewer candidates than promised, for CBT 2. As per candidates, the number of aspirants who have been shortlisted for CBT 2 is only 4-5 times the number of vacancies, whereas they had promised the number to be 20 times the number of vacancies.
Is that true?
Ever since the protests started, Ministry of Railways has released multiple notifications and explanations clarifying that they have shortlisted candidates equal to 20 times the vacancies only.
Then what is the issue?
A number of candidates have uploaded videos on social media, or talked to members of the press about their concerns. The gist of which is as follows.
1. They demand to know how normalization process happened. They claim that some candidates with marks less than them got selected.
2. RRB is supposed to shortlist candidates equal to 20 times the number of vacancies. However candidates say that since single candidate has been shortlisted for multiple posts, actual number of candidates shortlisted is only 4-5 times the number of vacancies. That is why they are using the hashtag #RRBNTPC_1student_1result.
3. To make matters worse, now candidates are also protesting against the change in RRB Group D selection process.
RRB NTPC Protest – Story so far
The major fiasco over the RRB NTPC result has continued to gain momentum. Candidates have been dissatisfied with the results and have resorted to physical protests in some places of the country. Despite that, the online Twitter movement under the hashtag ‘#RRBNTPC_1student_1result’ is seen to continue. Candidates have alleged that the Railway Recruitment Board has shortlisted fewer candidates than expected.
As per the official employment notice ‘CEN 01/2019’, the shortlisting was already set to be done at 20 times the number of vacancies. Meanwhile, according to a notice released by RRB, the shortlisting has been done as per this criterion only. A total of 1.25 crore candidates had registered for RRB NTPC CBT examination. Out of this figure, 7.05 lakh candidates have been selected for the subsequent round. This roughly means that 5.6% of candidates have qualified for the examination while the remaining 95% (approx) did not.
Why are candidates dissatisfied?
The main reason behind this dissatisfaction is due to the fact that only a small percentage of candidates have been shortlisted. This is the main reason why there has been so much discontent among the candidates.
Places like Patna, Pune, Howrah, Uttar Pradesh, etc. are now seeing severe protests by the candidates. Their main demand is to publish revised results.
However, lately, they have also been protesting for removing the Group D CBT exam. As per the candidates, it is not right for RRB to introduce the CBT 2 examination in Group D after three years.
As one can see from the image attached, there have been two trending hashtags under both RRB NTPC and RRB Group D CBT 2. In response to the claims and allegations made by the candidates, RRB has provided a statistical analysis over the issue with vacancies.
RRB’s Reply
The total number of notified vacancies is 35,281 for the pay level of 7th CPC of 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. However, after the declaration of results, a total of 7,05,446 candidates were shortlisted, which is almost 20 times the number of notified vacancies. Although candidates holding graduation degrees were eligible under all vacancies, the 10+2 category candidates came under 10,603 vacancies.
It was seen that the graduates also opted for the 10+2 vacancies. In legal terms, RRB is in no position to stop a candidate from applying to more than one category of posts. The Board claimed that it has shortlisted or selected 20 times the vacancies under each level as per the existing examination rules. From its standpoint, RRB has made it clear that the shortlisting has been done as per the existing criterion which they have supported with the statistics above.
Prevailing Unrest
Despite all clarifications from RRB’s end, the candidates do not seem to accept the modalities. They apprehend that there has been an alleged scam due to which they have now resorted to online and physical protests. The only demand is that they want revised results for RRB NTPC. As per candidates, the division between the different levels should have been done after the completion of the second test and not the first one.
