Laloo Prasad: Poll ploy?

New Delhi, Sept. 14: Playing the ?regional aspirations? card with a view to woo voters ahead of Assembly elections in Bihar, Union railway minister Laloo Prasad Yadav today scrapped his predecessor Nitish Kumar?s system for recruiting Group D personnel.

The Bihar leader has ordered that future recruitment for group D posts will be made by general managers. They will have to select candidates from the list forwarded by the district employment exchanges.

A series of train accidents caused primarily by the shortage of railway personnel in charge of track maintenance and supervision had prompted Kumar to announce recruitment for 65,000 group D posts, made up largely of gangmen and khallasi.

In the first and second phase, 20,000 vacancies apiece were to be filled up, with another 25,000 posts to be filled up later.

But in November last year, a stalemate over recruitment sparked a rash of parochial sentiments and widespread violence against outsiders in Assam and Maharashtra. The protesters were up in arms over the proposal to recruit on an all-India basis instead of on a regional level as before. This would have meant that a person living in Bengal could be posted to Tamil Nadu.

A senior railway board official said: ?The move will not have any impact on the recruitment process. Earlier, the candidate had a chance to work in any part of the country, now they will be confined to their region/division.?

Currently, the railway is divided into 16 zones, which are further sub-divided into 67 divisions, recruitment to which is conducted by 19 Regional Railway Boards.

Railway sources added: ?It should not be seen as scrapping of the old order since (Nitish) Kumar had accepted the demands of states like Assam and Maharshtra to end the controversy in future recruitment of Group C and D employees? and had decided to ?indicate? the division that the applicant may apply (to) and was to get absorbed (into).

?The political (one)upmanship should not impact these recruitments since they are related to safety and this has been very clearly pointed by the department of personnel and training. However they are silent on whether the region-specific direct recruitment can be done or not,? they said.