In a historic decision, the Ministry of Home Affairs on Saturday has approved the conduct of constable (general duty) examination for Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) in 13 regional languages, in addition to Hindi and English. The question paper will now be set in regional languages including Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Malayalam, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Odia, Urdu, Punjabi, Manipuri and Konkani.
The landmark decision has been taken at the initiative of Union Home Minister Amit Shah to give impetus to the participation of local youths in the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) and encourage regional languages, an official statement said.
The CAPFs are the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Border Security Force (BSF), Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) and the National Security Guard (NSG). "In a landmark decision under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, (the) Ministry of Home Affairs has approved conducting constable (general duty) examination for CAPFs in 13 regional languages, in addition to Hindi and English," it said.
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The announcement came days after Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin wrote to Amit Shah, calling him to include Tamil as a language for the written exam in the recruitment for CRPF personnel.
In his letter, Stalin said that in the notification for the CRPF recruitment written exam, it was mentioned that the test could be taken in English and Hindi. "The notification by @crpfindia to conduct its CBT only in English & Hindi amounts to blatant discrimination & denies equality of opportunity to non-hindi speaking states," he had said.
Earlier, Telangana minister KT Rama Rao had urged Shah to conduct the exam in state languages as well.
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Chief Ministers welcome move
After the announcement was made, several minister took to Twitter to appreciate the centre's decision.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin today shared the letter on Twitter and said, "As a result of my letter to Hon @AmitShah, the Union Govt has announced that it would conduct the CAPF exams in all state languages. I wholeheartedly welcome this decision & reiterate our demand to provide Question Papers in Tamil & other state languages in all Union Govt exams," he said.
Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant too thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah for taking the historic decision. "It surely will open more opportunities to local youth who aspire to join CAPFs," he said in a tweet.
(With inputs from PTI)
