After several aspirants went online with complaints of four times increase in the Railway Recruitment Board (RRB) jobs’ fee, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal said yesterday that there was no hike in the examination fee for the ongoing recruitment process. Addressing the concerns of the candidates who are set to apply for more than 89,000 posts, for which the national transporter had advertised recently, the minister said the exam fee was fixed at Rs. 250 for the exempted categories and Rs. 500 for the general category to ensure that only serious candidates applied.
Exempted categories include SC/ST, ex-serviceman, PWDs, female, transgender, minorities and economically backward class.
Ministry of Railways, through its RRBs, has announced one of the world’s largest recruitment processes for 89409 posts in Group C Level I & Level II Categories recently. Online applications have been invited for posts like Assistant Loco Pilots, Technicians (Fitter, Crane Driver, Blacksmith, and Carpenter), Track maintainer, Points man, Helper, Gateman and Porter.
According to the RRB notifications available online, in last four years, Assistant Loco Pilot (ALP) and Technician categories saw an increase of more than 1000 per cent. No examination fee was notified for SC/ST, ex-servicemen, persons with disability, women, minorities and economically backward candidates having annual family income less than 50,000 when RRB released its 2014 notification.
For other candidates, the examination fee was Rs. 40 then.
Last year too, those in the exempted category appeared in the exam for free, while the general category candidates had to pay Rs. 100.
“I want to make it clear that the hike in the fees is because we realised that many people fill the form and then do not turn up for the exams,” said the minister.