Against just two recruitment notifications, 2 crore govt job seekers applied for recruitment in Indian railways. And ever since they pressed the submit form button, they have been waiting to know when the exam date will be. Two of the biggest recruitment of the year, RRB Non-Technical Popular Categories (NTPC) recruitment against RRB CEN 01/2019, and RRC Group D recruitment against RRC CEN 01/2019 which were supposed to be held last year are still on hold and there is no confirmative answer as to when will the exam date will be conducted.
Fed up of not getting any official news on RRB NTPC or RRB Group D exam date, admit card, candidates have started resorting to RTI to get answers. However even RTI responses take a lot of time to come. Recently though candidates have shared the answers they have received from Indian Railways, and Railway Recruitment boards on the questions they had asked on the pending exams.
RTI Submitted for RRB NTPC, RRB Group D Exam Date, Admit Card
Every day a newspaper report comes up with the expected date for RRB NTPC or RRB Group D exam date and as usual, these are just rumours. However, recently, a candidate filed RTI to seek the answers on 6 questions.
Q1. When RRB NTPC (CEN 01-2019) exam will start?
Q2. When will RRC Group D exam will start?
Q3. I am preparing for both the exams and applied in both. Which exam will start first?
Q4. Is the selection process of new exam conducting agency (ECA) completed in railway or not? Please tell.
Q5. Which exam conducting agency (ECA) will conduct the upcoming exam of Railway like NTPC, Group D, Ministerial post.
Q6. In social media, there are rumours that TCS has been selected as ECA for conducting the exam. Is it true? Please tell.
Reply from Indian Railways has provided us with these answers
The reply on the RTI was provided by Railway Recruitment Board (RRB) Bhubanshwar.
For the first three questions asked in the RTI, it was replied that there is no information available for scheduling of CBT against CEN/2019 & CEN No. RRC-01/2019. Please visit the official website of RRB as information related to the exam will be updated on the website.
For the questions 4, 5 and 6, RRB gave the same response that no information is available about the exam conducting agency and it is advised to the candidates to visit the website regularly for more updates on it.
To the same RTI, RRB Patna, replied that application was forwarded to concerned CPIO for further action and that the name of the exam conducting agency cannot be disclosed due to para 8-1-e of RTI Act 2005.
… So RRBs have not yet decided upon the exam date for RRB NTPC and Group D exams!
This is confirmed that the Board has not yet finalised the exam conducting agency and hence cannot release the exam date. Due to the slow process of RRB, until now, the exam conducting agency has not been finalised. Whereas, on the other hand, if SSC is to be considered, in about 3 months it finalised the exam conducting body. It’s been now almost 04 months now, the RRB recruitment exam which was scheduled to start in the month of September is nowhere to be finalised yet.
There are various stages for the selection of exam conducting agency. First is the basic interaction which was concluded in the month of September- October. Then the tender is released by Railway and the process has been completed by the end of October. Next is tender filling in which all the participating ECA need to submit the form. This process has been completed in the month of November. Railway has also checked the turnover of the participating ECAs.
As per the information provided by the internal sources, about 1 or 2 stages of selecting the ECA is left and the candidates can soon expect the finalisation of ECA. However, it is clarified to the candidates that the exam date will not be released anytime soon even after finalising of ECA is done. This is because, there are many other formalities which need to be completed like exam management, etc.
As of now, RRB has not yet started the application status check facility for the candidates. Hence, first, the application status is released, and then after the exam schedule will release.
But what could be expected date for the release of the exam schedule? As per the information provided by the sources, candidates may have to wait for the next 2 or 3 month for the exam schedule for RRB recruitment. It can be expected to be out in mid-March or in the month of April 2020.
Indian railway is one of the largest employers in the world and consist of over 01 million employees. Every year, thousands of candidates are recruited against the vacancies released by the Railway Recruitment Board (RRB). There are 21 RRBs that carry out the process of recruitment across the country. Interested candidates need to fill the form online, appear for the test which is generally held in computer-based mode, followed by other essential skill tests required for some positions.
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