Following intervention of the Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Coal and Mines Pralhad Joshi, the Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESI) has modified its recruitment notification to allow candidates from Karnataka to write the preliminary and main examinations in Kannada medium.
The ESI Corporation had issued a notification dated December 27, 2021, for recruitment to the posts of Upper Division Clerk (UDC), stenographer (Steno) and Multi-Tasking Staff (MTS) in different regions and offices spread across the country. The recruitment is through two phases namely preliminary examination (qualifying in nature) and main examination.
However, in the December notification Kannada was not mentioned as medium of examination even for the lower-level posts, which meant that candidates from Karnataka had to write examinations either in English or Hindi to become eligible. As the recruitment is being conducted across thecountry, the candidates are free to apply for posts in a State of their choice. Following the development, various Kannada organisations had raised objection, alleging that the Centre was meting out injustice to Kannada-speaking candidates by not allowing them to write examination in Kannada. The MTS posts are categorised as Group-C posts.
