New Delhi: Rattled by the multi-crore
job scam involving its officials, Railways have decided to
curtail the powers of chairmen of Railway Recruitment Boards
and adopt "checks and balances" in the examinations procedure
to prevent leakage of question papers.
"We have given too much of responsibility to the
chairman. The chairman should not have so much access to
everything and therefore we are putting in necessary checks
and
balance in the examination system to prevent leakage of
question papers in future," Railway Board chairman Vivek Sahai
said Tuesday, adding the necessary steps will be taken "very
soon."
The CBI had on June 19 claimed to have unearthed a
multi-crore Railway recruitment scam and had arrested eight
persons, including Vivek Bhardwaj Sharma, son of S M Sharma,
chairman of RRB Mumbai who was later suspended, A K
Jagannatham, the then ADRM in Raipur and his son Srujan for
allegedly leaking exam papers for money.
"Our dependence on one person (chairman) of RRB for
conducting the examinations was to be rectified. Who knew that
the very person (RRB chairman) entrusted with the conduct of
the examination would turn out to be a traitor," he said
indicating harsher punishment for Sharma pending CBI inquiry.
Railways are also mulling changing the selection
procedure for question papers. Currently, each RRB is preparing
its own set of questions.
As per the new system under consideration, question
papers will be selected on random basis to make it more
transparent.
Leakages in one centres will have no impact on other
centres as the students will be provided multiple set of
questions, Sahai said.
Sharma and other 20 RRB chairmen were handpicked by
Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee based on their performances
and level of efficiency for the post. There are total 21 RRBs
in the country.
Regretting the incident which has stalled the
recruitment process in Railways, Sahai said, "We are sad that
such a thing happened. We are taking steps to prevent it."
Railways which had vacancies of about two lakh posts
had started the recruitment exercise of filling about 40,000
posts in phases.
Railways are conducting internal audit to find out
loopholes in the examination system.
PTI
