Assam: Bus carrying Tripura Cooperative Bank aspirants overturns, 1 killed, 12 critically injured

Agartala: Tripura government urged its Assam counterpart to provide the best possible healthcare facility to the candidates of different posts at Tripura State Cooperative Bank (TSCB) who met with a road accident in Dima Hasao district of South Assam on Thursday morning.

A job aspiring youth died on the spot, and at least 12 others were critically injured when a bus carrying candidates for the recruitment exam to centres in Assam.

The victim has been identified as Deepraj Debbarma, who hails from Dhalai district, along with 35 others who were going to Guwahati to appear for the online exam of TSCB’s different posts to be held on Friday for three days. The injured were shifted to a local hospital.

According to the report, the bus overturned on the road due to heavy rain in the morning and hit a road divider, skidding off a drain. The bus was registered with Assam and started for Guwahati on Wednesday late at night with all job aspirants.

For the first time, the job aspirants of Tripura have been going to another state to appear for the recruitment exam for the posts of Assistant Manager, clerks and support staff of the highly flourishing public sector bank of the state. To conduct the online exam of the candidates, TSCB authority outsourced the exam centres in Silchar, Guwahati, Jorhat, Dibrugarh and Tezpur of Assam besides Agartala.

Tripura government has also provided two special trains to facilitate the travel of the candidates to Guwahati and their return after the exam. The first train arrived on Thursday morning with the candidates appearing for the posts of Assistant Manager and the next train is scheduled to arrive on Friday morning.

“We have advertised for the filling up of 156 posts in different categories, and over 19000 applications have been received. All of them are permanent residents of Tripura as per the government norms, but the state doesn’t have the infrastructure to hold the online exam, which compelled us to organise exam in different locations of Assam,” said a top official of TSCB.