Podcast | Pick of the day - Will Railways' mass recruitment drive improve its track record?

Even as Indian railways has been in the news for many wrong reasons in the past few years with derailments, mishaps and numerous instances of tragic and avoidable loss of life, efforts have been made at least on paper to improve facilities and infrastructure.

In January 2018, yourstory.com reported that the authorities are now on a zero-accident mission to minimise the number of accidents as much as possible.

A track renewal is on the anvil, as are steps to eliminate unmanned level crossings, improve signalling, introduce signal automation, electrical/electronic interlocking systems with centralised operation of points and signals, reported Your Story.

Safer Linke Hofmann Busch (LHB) coaches with anti-climbing features have been introduced to reduce the fatalities in case of accidents.

The report also stated that in the Budget 2017-18, a corpus of Rs 1 lakh crore has been set aside to give a major boost to safety-related works connected with tracks, rolling stock and proliferation of other safety technologies and training of staff.

That brings us to the last but not the least important factor in the efficient functioning of the railways. Its human capital.

The latest development we are reporting on today is that Indian Railways will fill up over one lakh vacant posts by March-April next year. This was stated by Railway Board chairman Ashwani Lohani on July 3.

In a country where unemployment in various sectors can be measured via various statistical studies, it comes as no surprise that the railways has received around 2.27 crore applications for about 1.10 lakh vacancies it had advertised earlier this year.

According to various media reports, the examination for the posts, including those in the Railway Protection Force, will be conducted in the months of September, October and November this year.

Ashwani Lohani told the media and we quote, "The appointments will be made by March-April 2019. By 10 July scrutiny of the 2.27 crore applications will be completed. We will complete their physical and psychological exams by December-January and by March they will be appointed." Unquote.

Given the overwhelming response, the railways may issue a waiting list for vacancies which could be 50 percent of the total vacancies announced.

Jobs that are available include 26,502 posts of loco pilots and technicians, and 62,907 Group D posts.

Question papers will be provided to the candidates in 15 languages -- Hindi, English, Urdu, Bengali, Punjabi, Gujarati, Kannada, Konkani, Assamese, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Odia, Tamil and Telugu. This has been done to make the examination as inclusive as possible.

How this ambitious plan will be undertaken and executed remains to be seen.

Just over an year ago, around April 2017, the government had informed Parliament that over one lakh posts related to the railways' safety mechanism were vacant.

In a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha, Minister of State for Railways Rajen Gohain had stated then that efforts were being made to fill up the vacant posts .

It was stated that the number of posts lying vacant in safety cadres over all zonal railways was 1,28,942 and the number of vacant posts of all loco running categories including drivers was17,457.

One of the reasons for the delay in filling up these posts was supposedly the long-drawn-out process of recruitments with the many stages of written exam and recruitment process taking almost one-and-a-half to two years.

The Railway Board had hence asked senior officials to reduce the recruitment time to just six months.

This is a welcome initiative at a time when questions around job creation in multiple discourses are abounding.

As a www.bloombergquint.com report stated in 2017, a lot of activity is being observed in ministerial groups, committees of secretaries, inter-departmental working groups, and the task force under the NITI Aayog. The article stated and we quote, " The rush for enabling policy and conditions for job creation is all good – and hopefully, some of the motion will translate into movement.
There are over 20 lakh posts vacant across central and state governments.
Just the central government has over 4.2 lakh vacant posts. How about filling them up?

The cohabitation of vacant posts amidst outrage over rising unemployment – or poor job creation, if you please – is a starkly Indian paradox. What’s more, neither the parties in the ruling regime nor those in the Opposition have held the governments – whether at the centre or in the states – accountable for the persistence of these vacancies." Unquote.

One just hopes that the latest initiative to address the elephant in the room will bear fruit.

This is after all the largest recruitment drive in recent memory by the world's fourth largest rail network and hopefully Indian railways will utilise the teeming human capital in India to its fullest potential and other sectors will follow its example as well.