The sanctioned strength of all the zonal railways combined is 14,39,924. That of production units is 48,170. And an additional 21,277 strength is to be there for other bodies of the Indian Railways.
Against this sanctioned strength, the zonal railways have 11,89,514 people on roll. Production units have 42.286. Other units have 16,301. This leaves them with 19,052 vacancies in zonal railways, 5,884 vacancies in production units, and 4,976 in others. That is 17.39%, 12.22%, and 23.39% respectively.
Overall the sanctioned strength in Indian Railways, thus, happen to be 15,09,371, with 12,48,101 people on roll, 2,61,270 vacancies that turns out to be 17.31%.
The last compilation of zone wise and unit wise sanction strength, on roll personnel, vacancies numbers was last submitted on 01.04.2018, as per Piyush Goyal, Minister of Railways, who presented the figures in parliament yesterday. He says that the number of posts sanctioned in each category has been kept higher than the operational requirement, by considering leave reserve and rest giver, which is between 12.5% to 30% in safety categories.
Group wise, there are 13,662 group A vacancies, 5,318 group B, and 15,09,371 group C including erstwhile group D vacancies. In them, there are 4,166 backlog vacancies for SC, 3,829 for ST, and 6,377 for OBC. The minister assured that the backlog vacancies are filled in subsequent recruitment cycles.
It may be noted that railway recruitment is being carried out for 2.88 lakh vacancies which includes that for 1.66 lakh group D vacancies. Against the advertised recruitment notifications, over 5 crore people have applied.
There are 17 zonal railways. Between them, the strength division and in turn vacancies of group C and group D is highest for Northern railway that has 1,71,071 sanctioned strength and 31,222 vacancies. Least is for metro, with 4,865 sanctioned strength and 798 vacancies.
For others, the vacancies are 21,359 for Central railway, 8,731 in East Coast, 18,465 for East Central, 19,558 in Eastern. Then there are 16,840 vacancies in North Central, 13,003 in North Eastern, 16,278 vacancies in North Frontier railways. In North Western railways there are 14,402 vacancies, South Central has 16,218, South East Central has 7,477 vacancies, and South Eastern has 14,279 vacancies. Then there are 15,700 vacancies in Southern, 5,923 in South Western, 11,105 in West Central, and 19,052 vacancies in Western Railways.
The production units are Chittaranjan Locomotive Works with 2,766 vacancies, Diesel Locomotive Works with 504, Diesel Loco Modernisation Works with 201, Integral Coach Factory with 1,420 vacant positions, Rail Coach Factory with 444, Modern Coach Factory Raebareli with 314 vacancies, and Rail Wheel Factory with 235 vacancies.
Other bodies in Indian Railways and their vacancies are Camtech has 20 vacancies, Cofmow has 41, Core has 2196. Indian Railways Institute Of Civil Engineering has 11 vacancies Indian Railways Institute Of Electrical Engineering has 21, Indian Railways Institute Of Mechanical & Electrical Engineering consists of 4 vacancies, Indian Railways Institute Of Transport Management has 8, and Indian Railways Institute Of Signal Engineering and Telecommunications has 37. Then Rdso has 678 vacancies, National Academy Of Indian Railways has 43, Railway Protection Security Force has 1,622, and Railway Board has 295 vacant posts.
The minister was also asked specifically about vacancies in Railways in Karnataka region. Karnataka region railway recruitment are done by Railway Recruitment Board (RRB) Bengaluru, and Railway Recruitment Cell (RRC) South Western Railway (SWR). in 2014-15, there were 3,889 vacancies and empanelment was done for 839. In 2015-16, there were 5,047 vacancies and 1,630 empanelment. 2016-17 witnessed 5,145 vacancies and 2,132 empanelment. Then in 2017-18, there were 5,923 vacancies and 1,356 empanelment. Last year 2018-19 witnessed 7,050 vacancies in SWR whereas those added to the panel stood at 568. This in the past five years, a total of 6,525 candidates have joined the panel. Further in 2019-20, upto 30.09.2019, 4,135 more have come.
