News: Railways recruitment drive to hire around 90,000 employees begins

Recruitment

Railways recruitment drive to hire around 90,000 employees begins

The railways has started the process to hire 89,500 employees, including assistant loco pilots, technicians, gang-men, switchmen, trackmen, cabin-men, welders, helpers, and porters, as per a report.
Railways recruitment drive to hire around 90,000 employees begins

The Railways is driving a massive hiring plan with an aim to fill around 90,000 vacant posts. The focus is also on building the safety infrastructure by hiring more ground-level workforce.

It has issued the notifications for the hiring of around 63,000 jobs in group D category that includes gang-men and trackmen. Another notification for hiring 26,500 personnel as loco pilots and assistant loco pilots has also been issued. 

The massive hiring has led to a growth in staff expenses for Railways. A rise in staff expenses has been observed over one year from Rs 69,713.22 crore in 2016-17 to Rs 72,705.57 crore in 2017-18. And now, for the year 2018-19 the Staff expenditure is being pegged at around Rs 76,451.89.

Although the additional hiring is likely to cost Rs 4,000 crore a year, however, the recruitment drive is significant for the Railways as around 40,000 to 45,000 employees retire every year and the railways cannot compromise with safety. 

Earlier, this month Railway Minister, Piyush Goyal took the decision to restructure the board and cut the size of the board by half. Besides this changes were made in the eligibility criteria for appearing in railway exams. The railways relaxed the minimum qualification for its 62,907 vacancies of positions like trackmen and helpers from Industrial Training Institute (ITI) or equivalent certificate to a minimum Class X certificate. Further the age criteria has been relaxed and extended by two years across all categories.

From trimming the railway board by half, altering the eligibility criteria to driving a massive recruitment, Railways seems to be changing and innovating with time, with a strategy of right-sizing. These initiatives are simultaneously linked with the Central Government’s agenda of job creation. By providing an opportunity to the youth, from high school pass students to engineers, Railways is leading the nation towards job growth.  

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Topics: Recruitment

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