GFP hails govt's move to hold RRB exams in regional languages

The Goa Forward Party, an ally of the ruling BJP in the coastal state, has welcomed the Centre's decision to conduct the recruitment examination for Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) in regional languages, including Konkani.

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday said the exams for direct recruitment of Scale-I officers and office assistants in RRBs would be conducted in 13 regional languages, apart from English and Hindi.

These 13 languages are Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Konkani, Malyalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Odiya, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu.

The move will help people having fluency in regional languages to get jobs in RRBs, she said.

"This is an endorsement of our party's stand that local languages should be given equal importance in competitive exams," Goa Forward Party's (GFP) vice president Durgadas Kamat said in a statement released here on Sunday.

The step taken by the Union government will increase competitiveness in the examination and also provide equal opportunity to those youths who are not well-versed in Hindi or English, he said.

"The inclusion of Konkani will open up opportunities for Goan youths," Kamat added.

Sithraman, while announcing the decision earlier, noted that in the present system candidates educated in local languages are at a disadvantage due to the medium of examination.

She was of the view that the functioning of RRBs is state specific and therefore, knowledge of the local language of that state/region would help the candidate in performing his/her duties effectively.

At present, there are 45 RRBs functioning in the country having a total staff strength of around 90,000 employees.