SSC MTS, CHSL exams to be held in 13 regional languages from this year onwards

Now Staff Selection Commission (SSC) will conduct the recruitment exams for multi-tasking staff (MTS) and the Combined Higher Secondary Level (CHSL) exam in 13 regional languages, in addition to Hindi and English. The Department of Personnel and Training on Tuesday approved the recommendation of an expert committee. Earlier, the union government had approved conducting the CAPF exams in regional languages. 

With the approval of this recommendation, the question papers of SSC MTS and CHSL exams will be set in Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Malayalam, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Odia, Urdu, Punjabi, Manipuri (also Meiti), Konkani, Hindi, and English. 

'Action in line with PM Modi's vision'

"The action is in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision to ensure that everyone gets an equal opportunity to apply for a job and that no one is disenfranchised or placed at a disadvantage because of the language barrier," Union Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Dr. Jitendra Singh said.

The decision will result in lakhs of aspirants taking part in the examination in their mother tongue/ regional language and improving their selection prospects. The first MTS 2022 examination in regional languages will be conducted from May 2nd, 2023 onwards.

There had been persistent demands from different States to hold SSC exams in languages other than English and Hindi. The government appointed an Expert Committee to look at this aspect too amongst other things (review of the scheme and syllabus of examinations conducted by the Commission).

The Expert Committee in its report had inter-alia recommended the following: “Study of posts of SSC especially Group ‘C’ post indicates that these posts are at cutting edge of Government-citizen interaction. India being a country where multiple languages are spoken, it would be in the fitness of things to conduct 12th and 10th exams in multi-languages. To begin with, SSC can start with 14 languages as used by Railway Recruitment Boards (RRBs) / Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS) in their exams and gradually increase to include all the languages mentioned in Schedule VIII of the Constitution.” The government accepted this recommendation of the Expert Committee and asked SSC to work out the modalities.

Dr. Jitendra Singh said that States/UT governments are expected to launch a wide campaign encouraging local youths to use this opportunity of taking the examination in their mother tongue and participate in huge numbers to make a career serving the country.