SHILLONG: As the KSU has demanded cancellation of NEEPCO tests for the posts of trainee engineers (C), trainee engineer (E/M), trainee personnel officer and trainee accounts, the Government owned PSU has clarified that as per past practice, advertisements for the posts were published in all leading newspapers of the North East and two national dailies, including one in Hindi, as per statutory requirement.
“Maximum publicity was given in the North Eastern States and there was no lack of sufficient publicity,” NEEPCO said. Adding that in the advertisement, it was proposed to have test centers in all State capitals of the North Eastern states.
However, keeping in view options exercised by candidates for these centers and administrative convenience, it was finally decided to have two test centers at Shillong and Guwahati in addition to one in New Delhi.
According to NEEPCO, Delhi has seven venues since a large number of students, including many from the North East have opted for Delhi as their centre even as it added that the advertisement was for back log reserved vacancies in respect of SC, ST and OBC only in different posts.
NEEPCO also said that applications for recruitment were obtained by online method and all candidates who applied have been called for the written test and up to this stage there was no manual scrutiny and all the candidates were called on the basis of system generated lists.
“Being a CPSU of the central government, all applicable guidelines are being followed and accordingly, recruitment to Group-A posts is to be filled up on “All India basis” through open competition,” NEEPCO said, adding that cancellation of the examination or re-advertisement will only be detrimental to the candidates, especially to those of the North East, who have prepared and arranged their travel and stay at respective centres.
The NEEPCO also reiterated that it is committed to give people of the North East every opportunity to improve their quality of life and contribute to the sustainable development of the region as a whole.
Earlier, the KSU had demanded that the tests should be conducted only after re-advertisement with wide publicity while taking exception to the fact that seven out of the 10 test centres were in Delhi and only the remaining three were in the North East.)
