Even as Union Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav on Wednesday said that the Railway Recruitment Board (RRB) Mumbai’s exam that got disrupted due to violence by MNS activists on October 19 would be held again at exam centres located outside Maharashtra, his ministry started mulling ideas to streamline the RRB exams in a way that they don’t offer any room for Maharashtra-like violence.While the discussion is still at a nascent stage, Rail Bhavan officials admitted that changes were required to tackle the heartburn being witnessed in states like Maharashtra, whenever applicants from other states came to take exams. Officials added that changes, if at all made, would need to be backed by a political will. Leading the discussion is an idea to have a centralised examination system, like the UPSC or the Staff Selection Commission, where exams for vacancies in all the 19 RRBs are conducted on a single day across the country. The fact that such a system will enable candidates to take the exam in their home states is being thought of as the single-most advantage of such a system.Presently, an RRB located in a particular region conducts examinations for Railway Divisions located within its jurisdiction. “This system was originally put in place to ensure job opportunities for local people living in a particular area. But with nothing in the rules preventing anybody living anywhere in the country to apply to an exam in a particular area, we are seeing applicants from all over the country thronging to a particular RRB. Since the original concept has got challenged with a Mumbai-like incident, some modifications to the existing system are required,” said a ministry official.Another argument in favour of having a centralised exam is that it will allow candidates to compete for more number of jobs, spread across the country. “Currently, an RRB in a particular area recruits for only a limited number of vacancies. If all the vacancies in various categories of jobs were compiled and put up for a centralised exam, applicants will have a better chance of qualifying since the number of jobs will be much more than those in a particular RRB,” an official explained.
