Citing discrepancies, candidates to take TRB to court

The recruitment was announced on June 16 this year followed by written test on August 13. While the certificate verification is currently on, many candidates who are already working were astounded when they discovered that most seats which are to be filled by candidates with knowledge of Tamil, had gone to those from other states.

The state government has Tamil courses only in Civil and Mechanical engineering, whereas polytechnic students can write their answers in English, Tamil or in combination of both, said Gunasekaran, an affected candidate. However, in Electronics and Communication Engineering (ECE), 22 of the 26 seats in the OC category have been allotted to other state candidates, thereby depriving locals of jobs.

Nearly 107 candidates of the 1,058 belong to other states and though they do not know Tamil, the language in which they will teach students in polytechnics, the government has permitted them to join, provided they pass the government Tamil exam within two years. “But how will they teach in Tamil in two years?” asked Prakash, an engineering graduate who presently works as a Village Administrative Officer (VAO) in Pennathur. He has scored 113 out of 150 and will get a chance only when an outsider opts out.

Another issue raised by the students is that many of them had to spend a lot of time on certain questions, the answers to which were not among the four choices provided. When the answer key was released it showed that six questions each in Civil and Computer Science and Engineering (CSE), seven in Mechanical engineering and 17 in ECE were wrong. TRB then announced that all candidates would be given additional marks. “All candidates being given grace marks affects those who strived for these questions, ” observed the department head of ECE in a Chennai-based engineering, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Candidates also faced other problems. A few EEE candidates had earlier attempted written tests for the post of Assistant Engineers (AE) conducted by the TNEB. While candidate G Hemalatha scored 0 in this test, her score was 142 out of 150 in the TRB written test. Similarly, K Kannan scored 8.66 in TNEB, but 145 in TRB, as also E Vinoth who scored -2 (TNEB test has negative marking) in TNEB test, but 140 in TRB. Similarly, S Sivanesh scored -2 in TNEB, but 137 in the TRB tests. At least 21 candidates, who scored very low in the TNEB test and very high marks in TRB, have been called for certificate verification, sources said.