The high-power committee comprising senior officials to look into the concerns of candidates related to the Indian Railways recruitment process has already started receiving representations. This, even as senior Railway Recruitment Board (RRB) officials are meeting groups of students to take their submissions, according to a statement released by the Ministry of Railways on Friday.

Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has assured candidates and students that all their problems will be resolved with utmost sensitivity, the statement added.

At the same time, the Railway Ministry also circulated a detailed explanation defending the two-stage computer based test conducted as part of its recruitment process and elaborated on its reason for allowing graduates to apply for posts that require lower qualifications.

Applicants, who broke into a rampage earlier this week in States including Bihar and UP, have opposed the decision to hold the RRB-NTPC exam in two stages arguing that the second stage for final selection amounts to “cheating” those who appeared and cleared the first stage.

Around 1.25 crore candidates applied for the exams that had advertised over 35,000 posts from Levels 2 to 6.

In response to the concerns raised by candidates over the 2-stage Computer Based Test (CBT) conducted as part of recruitment process, Railways said it was done because in situations where number of candidates exceeded one crore, it was advisable to conduct CBT in two stages with the first stage for screening the candidates for the second stage.

The second stage could then be conducted with limited candidates which would ensure that extensive normalisation is not involved and the final merit is more fair, another statement issued by the Railways Ministry pointed out.

On complaints regarding some names appearing more than once in the list of 7 lakh roll numbers of short-listed candidates, the Railways said since the second stage consisted of CBT of five different levels and a candidate can be shortlisted for more than one level as per eligibility, merit and option, the lists of 7 lakh roll numbers would have some names appearing in more than one list.

Earlier, the Railways had said it was not possible to stop a candidate from applying for posts at various levels simultaneously although appointment would take place only in a single post.

Responding to concerns that graduate candidates were getting undue benefit of applying for both graduate and 10+2 level posts, Railways stated that the integration was done to save time and effort which had proved used during the Covid-19 pandemic. “Also standards of Computer Based Test 1 have been kept of 10+2 level so as to not to put disadvantage to 10+2 level students and it is only in CBT 2 that standards will be different across levels,” the release said.

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