Cong raises pitch for probe into police recruitment

Hyderabad: Congress on Thursday reiterated the demand for a probe into the irregularities in police recruitment being done by the Telangana State Level Police Recruitment Board (TSLPRB).

In an open letter to Governor ESL Narasimhan, All India Congress Committee (AICC) spokesperson Sravan Dasoju said, "the TSLPRB has initiated the process of recruitment of 18,435 police constables, assistant sub-inspectors and sub inspectors through separate notifications.

Over 7.19 lakh aspirants applied for the job and also paid an application fee. However, we regret to say that the TSLPRB failed to conduct the recruitment tests in a scientific and fool-proof manner."

He said that a couple of employees of E-Soft Consultancy, a private agency which was assigned the task of conducting the RFID tests, was caught when they were indulging in tampering of Radio Frequency Identification test results.

Sravan said that the issue was raised by thousands of candidates across Telangana seeking justice.

However, he said that it was unfortunate that there was no one in the government who at least listen to and respond to the grievances of candidates.

Sravan informed that a total of 224,741 students appeared for (physical measurement test) and (physical efficiency test) conducted by the board and 1.17 lakh qualified.

However, many candidates complained that neither any format was fixed to conduct the test nor any precedents were followed.

For the first time, the board used Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags for physical fitness tests as part of the recruitment for stipendiary police constable and sub-inspector posts.

The RFID works were assigned to a private agency eSoft. But the discrepancies in use of RFID tags allegedly deprived thousands of eligible youth an opportunity to get a job in the Police department.