Regional Rural Bank Exams To Be Held In 13 Regional Languages

The recruitment examination for the Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) will now be conducted in 13 languages other than Hindi and English. An announcement to this regard was made by the Finance Minister of India, Nirmala Sitharaman. This RRBs exam is conducted by the Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS).

The 13 languages in which the exam will be conducted include Assamese, Gujarati, Bengali, Konkani, Marathi, Kannada, Manipuri, Tamil, Malayalam, Odia, Telugu, Punjabi, and Urdu. Nirmala Sitharaman explained the changes in the recruitment for the Officers Scale-I and Office Assistants (multi-purpose) in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.

Decision To Help Expand Employment Opportunities

While discussing the reasons behind this new change, Nirmala Sitharaman said, “To provide a level playing field & to expand employment possibilities for local youths, it has been decided that examination for direct recruitment of officers (Scale-I)& Office Assistant in RRBs will be conducted in 13 regional languages in addition to English & Hindi.”

The demand for conducting bank exams in regional languages began recently on Twitter. Many users said that even though proficiency in a regional language is an essential eligibility criterion to apply for the IBPS RRB recruitment, the exam is conducted only in English and Hindi which is not fair.

Currently, the thought is trending that lack of regional languages as the medium for giving these exams have restricted many deserving candidates from getting employment.

Examination for Regional Rural Banks to be conducted in 13 regional languages: Smt @nsitharaman@PIB_India @MIB_India @BJPLive pic.twitter.com/eutp9Vp1BI

— NSitharamanOffice (@nsitharamanoffc) July 4, 2019

Change To Be Introduced From CRP RRB-VIII 8 Mains Exam  

At present, there are 90,000 employees working in 45 regional rural banks of the country. The change as written by Nirmala Sitharaman will be implemented from CRP RRB-VIII 8 Mains exam to be conducted in 2019 and onwards. 

The Officer Scale 1 examination is scheduled to take place on August 3, 4, and 11 and that of Office Assistant will take place on August 17,18 and 25. Very recently, G C Chandrashekhar of Congress had also raised the issue of conducting bank examinations in the regional language during a Zero Hour.

He said that most of the recruitment tests including the Indian Banking Service examination must be conducted in the Kannada language alongside Hindi and English so that local aspirants get equal chance to excel.