No private agency to be involved in recruitment process: TRB to HC

The Teachers Recruitment Board (TRB) today informed the Madras High Court that the recruitment process would not be outsourced to private agencies in the state, in future.
TRB Member Secretary T Uma gave the assurance on a suo motu PIL initiated by the court last month, based on a media report on alleged scam in recruitment of teachers and government employees in Tamil Nadu.
The report claimed several thousand high-paying jobs had been "sold" by private agencies handling the recruitment on behalf of the TRB and TNPSC by tampering with the exam coding sheets to inflate the marks of select candidates over the years.

The PIL had said the Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission and TRB had outsourced the selection process of teachers and Group I to IV service posts to private companies, allegedly compromising the sanctity of the procedures.
The PIL sought issuance of hall tickets through online mode to eligible candidates and appointment of a nodal agency to monitor the exam related issues.
When the matter came up, Justices Sathyanarayanan and Hemalatha directed the TNPSC chairman also to file his response with regard to ensuring free and fair conduct of exams and posted the case to March 9 for hearing.

Uma submitted that the TRB would buy equipment required for the conduct of examinations.

Initially, a separate server would be taken on rent from National Informatics Centre for the purpose of conducting the examination, she said.
The board would also introduce bio-metric based entry system even for TRB staff to access its strong areas.
The order for printing OMR sheets would be placed with the government press, she informed the bench.
Specified areas would be converted into strong rooms with double lock system, similar to strong rooms where Electronic Voting Machines are kept.
Confidential work like scanning of OMR sheets and storing answer sheets and scanned sheets would be done in the strong room area, the TRB member added.