New Delhi, Nov 23: In the wake of sporadic violence against Biharis in Assam and controversies in Assam and Mumbai following recruitment in railways, government today decided to club Railway Recruitment Boards (RRBs) with railway divisions to meet regional aspirations of the local people. Announcing the decision, Railway Minister Mitish Kumar told reporters that the rail ministry has also decided to club together 19 RRBs with 67 divisons of the railways for the benefit of regional people in the recruitment of Group "C and D" categories of jobs in the next phase.

Describing as "baseless" the charges of "favouritism and regionalism" with regard to ongoing recruitments in railways, he said the ministry has also introduced regional languages for the benefit of local people other than English and Hindi and clarified that it was aimed at removing apprehensions related to recruitments.

Regretting politicisation of recruitments in some states, he said "railway has been a symbol of national integrity and requested all people, state governments and others to let railway continue its national duty". Citing legal difficulties in fixing quotas for each states in the railway recruitments, he said out of the 67 divisions, there were only 18 started with single divisions rest 49 were multi-division states with more than one railway division in them whose operation is not "state centric but railway centric

Referring to the ongoing controversy and violence in Assam, Kumar said it was unfortunate and said all the charges were baseless as nearly 75 per cent of the applicants in the northern front were from the regional areas which included 46 percent from Assamese.

Bureau Report