India Behind The Lens (News Centre)

"Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS) must be exposed” says Dileep Bhat, who has written two of the common written examinations for the post of Probationary officer/management trainees. According to him the IBPS is not transparent and are hiding something from the aspirants, which forced him to file RTI, to which the body responded "The issue as to whether or not the institute is a public authority, covered under the RTI Act, is pending and the matter is subjudice. In view of the order passed by the Delhi High Court, the institute has not appointed any CPIO". The Governing body of IBPS consists of nominees from Reserve Bank of India, Ministry of Finance Government of India, and National Institute of Bank Management, representatives of Public Sector Banks, Insurance sector and academics.

IBPS conducts written examinations for various nationalised banks like Syndicate Bank, Punjab & Sind Bank, etc. As Mr. Bhat found it futile to expect any reply from the IBPS, he filed various RTI applications against these banks. Core questions asked were

1. Number of Vacancies declared in 2011 by each banks?
2. Number of applications received by each bank?
3. Number of vacancies filled?
4. Total number of vacancies which remained unfilled before 11/12/2012?

A result of the common written examination was published on 12 December 2011. As per IBPS norms, the validity of score card is one year, and the validity expires on 11/12/2012. As per the RTI reply given by Syndicate Bank, the number of vacancies declared for 2012 was 1750, and total number of vacancies UNFILLED on 11 December 2012 is 1268. That means through this hectic process of examinations and interviews only 482 out of 1750 vacancies got filled. What happened to rest of 1268 (72%) vacancies? Nobody knows! Why was no second round of interview conducted by the bank to fill the vacancies? Syndicate bank had collected 200 Rs each from about 65,000 aspirants to register for interview. Around 9989 were shortlisted for the interview to fill 1750 vacancies and about 1672 offer letters were sent to aspirants, of which only 482 joined the bank.

Mr. Bhat has filed a writ petition in Honourable Kerala High Court about this issue. What provoked him is that IBPS is going to start registration process for 2013 Common written Examination (CWE PO-3) from July 22, 2013 and they have reviewed educational qualification and age bar criteria. Now Graduate in any discipline with 60% marks and who is not more than 28 years of age can appear in the examinations. Earlier Graduate in any discipline who is below 30 years of age could appear for the examination. His contention is that "With out appointing candidates from second Common Written Examination the IBPS has issued notification for third Common Written Examination. New notification for third Common Written Examination while the second Common Written Examination’s validity is not expired is only to collect huge application fees of Rs. 600/- from each candidate and thus affecting badly the unemployed youths of the nation. The fact that the petitioner has written the examination after preparations and was eligible for appointment in any of the 19 public sector banks which is a participating bank in IBPS examination. The IBPS did not issue rank list, waiting list etc. The application fee for IBPS examination also increased tremendously from Rs.400/- to Rs. 600/-. In this way the participating 19 Public Sector Banks have a malicious intention to generate a huger turnover and profit".

According to many Bankers, the present system of recruitment contains many fallacies, compared to old system, where each bank used to conduct separate written exams and interviews. BSRB (Banking Services Recruitment Board) used to conduct examinations in 1990s were more transparent and effective than the present system followed by IBPS. Dileep Bhat, who is a law student too, is now busy exposing IBPS through RTIs and litigations.