School-level Tamil edu essential for Tangedco jobs

After the appointment of non-Tamil candidates created a furore, Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (TANGEDCO) has decided to prevent the entry of candidates who do not possess adequate knowledge in Tamil from entering its service by making it mandatory for the candidates to have studied Tamil at the school level.

In May this year, Tangedco had recruited 300 assistant engineers. Of them 36 were non-Tamil or people hailing from other states including Bihar and Uttar Pradesh in the recruitment. The appointment of non-Tamils in the state-owned utility created a political furore in the state.

A senior Tangedco official said that due to lesser proficiency in Tamil language, such (non-Tamil) officials find it very difficult to cope-up with the day-to-day activities in field works where they required to communicate in Tamil among their co-workers and the public.

“As per the provisions of the TNEB service regulation, the candidates who do not possess adequate knowledge in Tamil may also enter the Tangedco’s service subject to fulfilment of certain conditions like they should pass Tamil languages tests within a period of two years. If they fail in the tests, the officials could be discharged from the service,” the official said, noting that such officials finding it difficult to pass the test and seek an extension of time to pass beyond the period of two years. In the order dated November 28, Tangedco said in order to avoid such difficulties, it was decided to appoint the candidates who possess adequate knowledge in Tamil alone into the service. The section 91(3) of the TNEB Service Regulation in connection with linguistic qualification was amended making it mandatory to appoint any person who is recruited through direct recruitment should possess adequate knowledge of the state – Tamil.

The order said that in the case of a post for which the education qualification is the minimum general educational qualification and above, the candidate should have passed the SSLC public exam or its equivalent with Tamil as one of the languages, or studied the high school course in Tamil medium. “In the case of post for which the educational qualification is below SSLC, the candidate should have studied in Tamil medium or passed Tamil as one of the languages in those standards or in any higher standards,” it said.