Railways to put marksheets on website to push transparency

New Delhi: In a major move aimed at bringing transparency in the recruitment drives conducted by Indian Railways, the Ministry has decided to put the marksheets of all aspirants on the website after a few days of their successful appearance in the recruitment test of different posts.

According to officials, the Ministry of Railways has taken the decision to do away with all 'opaque' practices of the department particularly in recruitment drives that only add to the documentation burden for ministry.

"It's been noticed that most of RTIs filed by aspirants are about seeking details of their marks obtained in the different recruitment examinations. Knowing their marks is their right, so why should we indulge in further documentation work after successful conduct of the examinations," an official said.

"When we are adopting transparent methods to conduct recruitment drives, then what's the need to hide their marksheets. It's their right to know as what's their scorecard," the official said, adding, "We have decided to put the marksheets on the websites of recruitment boards so that anyone can get to know about their scorecard."

Explaining further, the official said, "The Railways would declare a final cut-off mark for different categories and students having marks above that would be considered qualified for the second round of examination procedures."

"It's not that anyone can have the access of marksheets of everyone. It would be protected by password and only aspirants can have take a look at their scorecard of their own only by using the password and username provided to them," the official said.

The decision in this regard has been taken after students alleged corruption in different examinations conducted by Staff Selection Commission (SSC) and staged a protest outside the head office of the SSC in the national capital for over 15 days.

Notably, the Centre was 'forced' to order CBI probe into the matter and the central investigating agency has already registered a preliminary inquiry in the SSC paper leak case and has started investigating the matter.

Commenting on the move, Himanshu Shekhar, who prepares for different competitive examinations, said, "It's a move in the right direction. I urge other recruitment agencies to also follow the suit and start uploading marksheets on websites." Notably, the Indian Railways has started hiring for 89,500 positions, which is touted to be the biggest recruitment process in the world. The positions include technicians, porters, assistant loco pilots, gangmen, trackmen, cabinmen and much more.

The scheduled drive seeks to recruit youth from across various educational qualifications - from high school pass to engineers. This drive will also give a boost to the current government's employment generation. According to reports, around 1.2 lakh positions are vacant in the Railways now with around 40,000-45,000 employees retiring every year.