In a landmark decision, the Centre has approved the conduct of the Staff Selection Commission Multitasking (non-technical) Staff (SSC MTS) examination, 2022 and Combined Higher Secondary Level examination, 2022 in 13 regional languages in addition to Hindi and English, Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh said today.

This historic decision by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) has been taken at the initiative of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to give an impetus to the participation of local youth and encourage regional languages.

In addition to Hindi and English, the question paper will be set in the 13 regional languages i.e. Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Malayalam, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Odia, Urdu, Punjabi, Manipuri (also Meiti) and Konkani.

The decision will result in lakhs of aspirants taking part in the examination in their mother tongue/regional language and improving their selection prospects.

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, among other things (review of the scheme and syllabus of examinations conducted by the Commission).

The Expert Committee, in its report, 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.

To start with the Commission has decided to conduct the MTS Examination, 2022 and the CHSLE Examination, 2022 in 15 languages (13 regional languages + Hindi + English) as used by the Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS) / Railway Recruitment Boards (RRBs) for conducting their examination. The notice of the MTS Exam has already been issued. the notice for CHSL Exam in Multi-Language will be issued in May-June 2023.

Jitendra Singh said that attempts are being made to eventually incorporate all of the languages listed in the Constitution’s Eighth Schedule. He added that SSC continually works to ensure that all segments of the people have an equal opportunity to succeed in order to eliminate regional inequities and realise the Constitution’s principles while also recognising and valuing our nation’s linguistic variety.