Railways to cut down recruitment process from 2 years to 8-9 months

Railways has decided to cut down its nearly two year-long recruitment process to just eight to nine months, a senior official said today.

With over two lakh vacancies in the national transporter, general managers of 16 zonal railways had requested Ashwani Lohani, Chairman Railway Board, to cut down the process which usually takes around two years.

"We are finalising a proposal to restrict the recruitment process to eight or nine months by expediting every step," the official said.

The board has instructed its departments to explore a time line of six months, which now officials say has been tentatively fixed at around nine months.

The departments have been asked to submit their proposals on the issue by January 20.

As of December 2016, railways had a staff strength of more than 1.3 million. It has 225,823 vacancies in Group 'C' and Group 'D' categories.

According to data available with Railways, it has 122,911 vacancies in safety categories and a shortage of another 17,464 locomotive running staff.

The vacancies range from profiles such as drivers, guards, gangmen and other technical staff.