The exams for direct recruitment of Scale-I officers and office assistants in regional rural banks (RRB) would be conducted in 13 regional languages apart from English and Hindi, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said Thursday..
The move will help people having fluency in regional languages to get jobs in RRBs, she said.
Earlier the examination was conducted in English and Hindi.
"Thus, with a view to provide a level playing field and expand employment for local youths, it has been decided that examination for direct recruitment of officers (Scale-I) and Office Assistant (Multipurpose) in RRBs will be conducted in 13 regional languages in addition to English and Hindi," the minister said in a suo moto statement to both Houses of Parliament.
These 13 languages are Assamese, Bangla, Gujarati, Kannada, Konkani, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu.
It was also informed that this change shall be implemented from the Mains examination of the CRP RRB VIII (2019) onwards.
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The minister was of the view that the functioning of the RRBs is state specific and rural focused and therefore knowledge of the local language of that state/region would help the candidate in performing his/her duties effectively.
The minister said that in the present system candidates educated in local languages are at a disadvantage due to the medium of examination.
At present, there are 45 RRBs functioning in the country having a total staff strength of around 90,000 employees.
Lauding the effort of the government, Congress leader L Hanumanthaiah suggested that this facility be extended in the recruitment of nationalised banks as well.
RJD leader Manoj Jha suggested that all languages in the schedule of constitution should be included for recruitment examinations of RRBs.