Around 1,000 KPSC aspirants miss exam as train delayed by 5 hours

Around 1,000 persons, who were travelling to Kalaburagi to attend KPSC competitive exam for recruitment of assistant executive engineers (AEE), could not attend the exam as the Hasan-Solapur Express (11312) was delayed by nearly 5 hours.

Many aspirants in south Karnataka had travelled to Hassan in an effort to reach the exam on time, while the Railways was made aware of the students' concerns several days before the exam date.

Stranded in Raichur, hundreds of angry aspirants blocked the railway track demanding justice. The railway officials who came to pacify them had to face flak.

Rekha, an aspirant from Chitradurga, said the train left at 8.30 pm on Sunday. "This is an exam that was postponed for more than two and a half years. We were supposed to reach Kalaburagi at 6.30 am. The five hours delay has caused great injustice. Let them reschedule the exam and give us another chance," she demanded.

However, the South Central Railway (SCR) which had scheduled non-interlocking work on December 12, 13 and 14 did not consider the concerns of the students, who lost the chance to write the exam that began at 10 am.

Mahendra, an aspirant, told Deccan herald that students were unnecessarily made to suffer. "The express train got delayed by 4-5 hours. So we could not reach exam centre on time. There were around 800-900 serious aspirants on the train," he said.

Abhishek R, an activist, noted that the railways could have postponed the work by a day. "Work was anyway delayed by many days and one more day wouldn't have had any impact. They are playing with the future of Karnataka students," he said.

From the South Western Railway, Chief Public Relations Officer E Vijaya said several trains were delayed because of technical issues involved in the line-block that was set up for ongoing doubling works in Hindupur.

"Some trains were detained last night. Efforts were made to improve their running and real-time monitoring is being done. Basava Express reached Kalaburagi at 8.11 am and Solapur-Hassan express reached Yesvantpur at 8.15 am," she said.

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