The Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited management is under pressure to scrap the deal it signed with Delhi-based ABC Consulting for conducting tests for recruitment of various posts including the management trainees following several discrepancies found recently denting the image of the navaratna company.
A two-member committee comprising two Executive Directors, which was formed by the management, also confirmed in its preliminary report that the firm outsourced by the RINL had goofed-up in setting the question papers as well as ensuring their timely despatch, authoritative sources told The Hindu . Though the field assistant and junior assistant trainee exams were conducted on the same day on July 9, only the test for the first exam was cancelled immediately due to failure of the question papers to reach Visakhapatnam two to three hours before the commencement of the exam. On the other hand, on the basis of the recommendation of the two-member panel, the management cancelled the junior assistant trainee exam on July 17 after finding that the Delhi-based firm was responsible for mix-up of question papers. There were also allegations that the question papers were circulated on Whatsapp. All three exams attracted applications from all over the country due to promise of a lucrative career in RINL, the corporate entity of Visakhapatnam Steel Plant. The management faced flak from candidates as well as the trade unions for conducting field assistant and junior assistant trainees in two separate sessions on the same day by not allowing candidates applying for one test from writing another though many of them were eligible for both the posts.
All three posts would have filled 900 plus posts mostly required for the ₹12,300 crore 6.3 million tonne expansion and ₹4,000 crore modernisation project.
