Railway recruitment exams to be held in regional languages - India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday announced that the railway recruitment examinations would be conducted in regional languages. Presenting the Railway Budget in the parliament here, Banerjee said: "Recruitment policy of Railway Recruitment Boards (RRB) has been reviewed. Now onwards, question papers will be made available in local state languages also besides Hindi, Urdu and English, examination will be held simultaneously by all RRBs for a particular post." She also proposed extension of 'Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana' to all licenced porters, vendors and hawkers. She also proposed setting up a Railway Cultural and Heritage Promotion Board and Shambhu Mitra Cultural Complex at Howrah for the employee. Rabindra Museum at Howrah and Gitanjali Museum at Bolpur are also proposed to mark the 150th birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore, she said. In order to upgrade railway infrastructure, Banerjee said that a centre for Railway Research will be set up at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur for research in key areas of railway technology and a state-of-the art advanced loco pilot training centre at Kharagpur and an advanced railway track training centre at Beleghata. To overcome of the shortage of coaches, new coach factories are being set up at Rae Bareilly, Kancharapara and Palakkad. A wagon repair shop will be set up at Badnera and a new Rail Axle Factory will be set up at New Jalpaiguri through public- private partnership (PPP) or Joint Venture mode. Besides 5 state-of-the-art wagon factories also through joint venture and public- private mode at Sikandrabad, Barddhaman, Bhubneshwar and Kalahandi, Guwahati and Haldia. Bangerjee also announced 'Kisan Vision Project' for manufacturing refrigerated container for carrying agricultural products so that farmers are not forced for distress sale of their produce. Proposing several new initiatives for freight business, Banerjee said Railways would introduce a modified wagon investment scheme for high capacity general purpose and special purpose wagons for carrying iron ore, coal and cement. A scheme to run special freight train by private operators for commodities such as automobiles, vegetable oil, molasses, chemicals and petrochemicals will be notified. A premium "Tatkal Service" for parcel and freight movement besides special wagons for iron ore, fly ash, automobiles will also be introduced. Reiterating Railways' commitment for time bound completion of dedicated corridors, Banerjee said preliminary engineering-cum-traffic surveys for North-South, East-West, East-South and South-South corridors will be taken up this year. She also said that Railways is also working on high speed passenger rail corridors, a National High Speed Rail Authority will be set up for planning, standard setting and implementing these projects.