Mass Hiring Begins At Railways: 2.4 Crore Applicants For 1.4 Lakh Railway Jobs; 20% Reserved For Interns!

On Thursday, the national transporter, Indian Railways said that over 2.40 crore candidates have applied for the 1.4 lakh vacancies in Indian Railways.

Indian Railways Vacancies

Prior to this, Railways had notified about the 3 types of vacancies for 1.40 posts.

Which are distributed as  

35208 for NTPC (non technical popular categories like guards, office clerks, commercial clerks etc), 

1663 for Isolated & Ministerial categories (Steno & Teaches etc) and 

103769 for Level 1 vacancies (track maintainers, pointsman etc). 

Against these vacancies, RRBs had received more than 2.40 crore applications. 

But, the Computer Based Test (CBT) for filling these vacancies had to be deferred due to the Covid-19 pandemic induced lockdown across the country.

20% Vacancies Reserved For Apprentices

Further, Indian Railways said that for the level-1 recruitment, they have reserved 20 % of the vacancies for the apprentices in 1,03,769 notified vacancies.

Their release said, “As per Apprentice Act in 2016, Indian Railways has reserved 20 per cent vacancies (i.e. 20,734 vacancies) for apprentices in 1,03,769 notified vacancies for level-1 recruitment currently under process,”.

“All eligible citizens of the country are entitled to compete and apply for the regular jobs. Direct recruitment without any open competition is against the rules,” said Indian Railways, while talking about the recruitment process.

Interestingly these releases came after the news of the trained apprentices at Railway establishments who were demanding regular appointments.

“As per the amendment made in the Apprentice Act in 2016, every employer has to make a policy of appointment of Act Apprentices trained in their establishment. Keeping this in view, Railways has kept 20 per cent vacancies in Level 1 recruitment for such apprentices and give fair opportunity to all,” the release mentioned.

Indian Railways said, “As per Section 22 (i) of Act Apprentices Act, 1961 amended on 22nd Dec, 2014 provides that, ‘Every employer shall formulate its own policy for recruiting any apprentice who has completed the period of apprenticeship training in his establishment,”.

CBT Test Preparation

While talking about the interview process, Indian railways said that they have  made requisite preparations for smooth conduct of Computer Based Test (CBT) which is scheduled on 15th December.

They will be posting the details of the schedule of the CBTs on websites of RRBs in due course separately for these employment notifications. 

“The computer-based exams will begin from December 15 for the three categories of posts and a detailed schedule will be announced very soon,” according to V K Yadav, the Railway Board Chairman.