Kerala: Job Aspirants Who’ve Cleared Exams in a fix as IBPS Moves Interview Venue to Bengaluru

Thiruvanathapuram: The move by Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS) not to allow interview centres in Kerala is causing great distress among thousands of job seekers in the state. All applicants from Kerala who have cleared the mains exams for officer grade vacancies and have qualified for interviews are now being asked to appear for the interviews in Bengaluru.

Several job aspirants and employees’ organisations have criticised this move by IBPS.

Left leaders V Sivadasan of CPI(M) and Binoy Viswam of CPI, both Members of Rajya Sabha, have also written to the authorities demanding that interview centres be set up in Kerala. Sivadasan in his letter to the Chairman of IBPS, said that the move to disallow interview centres in Kerala would put applicants from the state in extreme hardship. Especially considering the COVID scenario, the IBPS decision to force applicants from Kerala to undertake inter-state and long-distance travel will prove detrimental, he said.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) MP from Kerala also wondered if the IBPS move was part of the Union government’s “negligence” toward the state. As an autonomous institution, the only consideration for IBPS should be the efficiency of the recruitment process and the convenience of the candidates, he added in his letter.

Vacancies in public sector banks across the country are administered by IBPS, a private agency. Earlier, candidates appearing for the examination from Kerala were interviewed in Kerala. Canara Bank, the lead bank in Kerala, was given the task of conducting the interview.

Meanwhile, the Kerala State Committee of the Bank Employees Federation of India (BEFI) has come out in protest against the move and demanded that IBPS allow interview centres in the state. BEFI organised protest demonstrations in all district centres on Thursday.

S S Anil, state general secretary of BEFI, told NewsClick that the move was another example of the “continued neglect and discrimination” against Kerala by the Centre. He also alleged that disallowing interview centres in the state was done to cut expenses of the recruitment process.

T Narendran, Kerala state president of BEFI, termed the IBPS move as ‘autocratic and opaque'. The change in venue for applicants from Kerala has been implemented “in secret” without IBPS issuing any official order, he alleged, addingthat this indicated that some “vested interests” were behind the move.

Narendran told NewsClick that even though many aspirants who have qualified for the interview are facing difficulties in travelling to Bengaluru, they are wary of expressing their disappointment in public as they fear it would affect their prospects in the interview.

The Banking Services Recruitment Board (BSRB), a government-controlled agency similar to Union Public Service Commission or UPSC, had been in charge of recruiting employees to nationalised banks till 2001. The Union government dissolved the agency in 2001 and later assigned the task to IBPS-- a government-controlled agency in the private sector.