Railway Recruitment Boards confirm that the panels remaining for RRB ALP (CEN 01/2018), RRB Group D (CEN 02/2018), and RRB JE (CEN 03/2018) will be completed by January 2020. The announcement comes as 1.26 crore jobseekers await the admit card of RRB NTPC (CEN 01/2019) recruitment exam.
In the ongoing lok sabha session, the Railway minister was posed with the tough question of whether the government is planning to retrench railway employees. To which, the Minister replied in the negative, confirming that no such action was planned.
Regarding the current manpower position in Indian Railways, Piyush Goyal said that the sanctioned strength of gazetted employees in railways is 17,938, and for non gazetted, the sanctioned strength is 15,06,189.
For these two broad categories of posts, railways currently has 15,317 gazetted officers, and 12,02,583 non gazetted employees. The total vacancies are thus 3,06,227.
It was against the existing vacancies only that the Railway Recruitment Boards namely Ahmedabad, Bhopal, Chennai, Kolkata, Patna, Thiruvananthapuram, Ajmer, Bhubaneswar, Gorakhpur, Malda, Ranchi, Allahabad, Bilaspur, Guwahati, Mumbai, Secunderabad, Bangalore, Chandigarh, Jammu – Srinagar, Muzaffarpur, Siliguri released seven Centralized Employment Notices (CENs).
The 7 CENs invited applications for a total of 2,83,674 vacancies. Of them, three were in 2018 for 77,909 group C vacancies, and 63,202 level 1 vacancies, and four were in 2019 for 38,794 and 1,03,769 level 1 vacancies.
RRBs have completed the examination process for three CENs, the ALP, Group D, and JE posts. A total of 74,507 panels have been published insofar which includes 21,222 group C and 53,285 level 1 vacancies. Exam process of one CEN issued in 2019 for some group C posts have also been completed and panel has been given to 1,519 candidates; here the minister referred to the RRB CEN 02/2019 for paramedical vacancies. For a total of 36,871 group C vacancies and 1,03,769 level 1 vacancies, the recruitment process is ongoing. 2.4 crore candidates have applied against these vacancies. Railways is targeting to complete empanelment for these vacancies by the end of the year 2020.
Further on the matter of railway recruitment through outsourcing, the Minister said “Railway does not appoint or recruit employees through outsourcing mode. Employees are recruited by Railway Recruitment Boards etc. In view of exigencies of services requiring specialized work, there are certain activities where Railways directly engage persons on contract basis, such as, Contract Medical Practitioners, Teachers, paramedical staff etc. To meet the shortage of doctors on Indian Railways, Contract Medical Practitioners (CMPs) are engaged against clear vacancies as a stop-gap arrangement till regularly selected candidates join through UPSC.”
RRB NTPC application status, exam city intimation, admit card, exam date are awaited. The last date to apply for RRB NTPC 2019 was March 31, 2019, and for Group D (RRC CEN 01/2019) it was April 12, 2019. Exam date, city intimation, admit cards for both are awaited. For the NTPC recruitment, application status is also yet to be released.
Reports suggest that for both of these recruitment exams, RRBs will announce the exam date in January 2020, release admit card in February 2020 and conduct exams in either February or March 2020.
1,26,30,885 candidates have applied for RRB NTPC (CEN 01/2019) for 35,208 vacancies. 1,15,67,248 have applied for RRB Group D (RRC CEN 01/2019) for 1,03,769 vacancies. Another pending recruitment exam is that of RRB CEN 03/2019 for Ministerial posts with 1,663 vacancies, for which 1,02,940 candidates have applied.
