"The North East continues to remain a deficit zone, which means that vacancies are being filled up by candidates from surplus zones," Raghupathy told reporters here today.
"The main reason is the less number of applicants from the North East. This is evident from the fact that in 2010-11 out of 1.38 lakh applications received for recruitment of Riflemen in Assam Rifles, there were only 7,000 applications from this region," he said.
A major problem encountered by candidates in remote rural areas, border districts and militancy affected areas is lack of information about the Commission's examinations and recruitments, access to application forms and instructions on how to fill these up, Raghupathy said.
To overcome this difficulty, he said it has been decided that the Commission will distribute application forms and instructions free of cost in local vernaculars through the state government machinery, and units of central armed police forces situated in remote localities.
Despite the problems, the SSC Chairman said, "there has been considerable improvement in 2012 recruitment, though there is a huge shortfall in the north eastern states other than Assam."