The Ministry of Home Affairs has made a historic decision to conduct the constable (general duty) examination for Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) in 13 regional languages, in addition to Hindi and English. The CAPFs include the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Border Security Force (BSF), Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) and the National Security Guard (NSG).

The ministry stated, ‘In a landmark decision under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, (the) Ministry of Home Affairs has approved conducting constable (general duty) examination for CAPFs in 13 regional languages, in addition to Hindi and English.’ The decision to include 13 regional languages including Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Malayalam, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Odia, Urdu, Punjabi, Manipuri, and Konkani, in addition to Hindi and English, is expected to improve the prospects of lakhs of aspirants who can now take the examination in their mother tongue or regional language.

This decision follows Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin’s request to include Tamil as a language for the written exam in the recruitment for CRPF personnel. Stalin had written a letter to Home Minister Amit Shah stating that the notification for the CRPF recruitment written exam only mentioned English and Hindi.

The Ministry of Home Affairs believes that the addition of regional languages will result in a significant increase in the number of aspirants who take the examination and improve their selection prospects. The ministry and the Staff Selection Commission will sign an addendum to the existing Memorandum of Understanding to facilitate the conduct of the examination in multiple Indian languages.

The constable (general duty) examination is a flagship examination conducted by the commission that attracts lakhs of candidates from across the country. This decision to include regional languages is expected to create more opportunities for aspiring candidates to join the CAPFs.