The Railways have filled as many as 294,115 vacancies in the past five years, with more than 90 per cent of the candidates recruited in the safety and operational categories, as stated by Union Minister of Railways Ashwini Vaishnaw in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday. The occurrence and filling of vacancies are a continuous process within the Indian Railways, considering its size, distribution, and criticality of operation, the minister said.
“Adequate and suitable manpower is provided to cater to the regular operations, changes in technology, mechanizations, and innovative practices. The vacancies are filled primarily by placing indents by Railways with recruitment agencies as per operational and technological requirements,” the minister informed the Lower House.
The minister further apprised the House that two major competitive Computer-Based Tests (CBT), involving more than 2.37 crore candidates, have been conducted recently to fill up 1.39 lakh vacancies for non-gazetted posts. Similarly, CBT for CEN RRC 01/2019 (Level 1) was conducted for more than 1.11 crore candidates in five phases last year across 191 cities and 551 centers in 15 languages.
“Periodical review of Running Staff is done through crew review exercises by Zonal Railways as per delegations of power. This crew review is done on an annual/six-monthly basis by Zonal Railways, which means virtually every year a crew review is done,” the minister said in his written reply.
