The Indian Railways is holding a mega recruitment drive in three phases from December 15, 2020 for which as many as 2.44 crore applicants will be appearing to fill about 1.4 lakh vacancies in various cities across the country.

The first phase of the 21 Railway Recruitment Boards (RRBs) will be conducted from December 15 to 18 for Isolated and Ministerial categories (CEN 03/2019).

This will be followed by exams for Non-Technical Popular Categories (NTPC) categories (CEN 01/2019) which will be held between December 28 and March 2021.

The third recruitment for CEN No. RRC- 01/2019 (Level1) is scheduled to be held tentatively starting April 2021 till June end.

For Isolated and Ministerial categories, candidates will be informed individually through email and SMS about their city of exam, date, and shift of exam through a link provided on RRBs official websites.

Link for downloading of e-call letter will be made live 4 days prior to exam date on official websites of all RRBs. Communication regarding next phases of recruitment will be released in due course.

Safety Preparations for COVID-19

RRBs have made extensive preparations for conducting examinations of this large scale in COVID-19 pandemic times following SOPs as laid down by the government ensuring social distancing, compulsory use of masks, sanitizers, curtailing shifts for conducting Exams to only two shifts per day.

The Indian Railways said, “Efforts are being made by RRBs to ensure that as far as possible the candidates are accommodated in their own state so that they can reach their exam centres by undertaking the overnight journey.”

“Female and PWD candidates are accommodated within their home states. However, considering the skewed distribution of candidates area-wise, there will be unavoidable inter state movements.”

“Railways will be running special exam trains to cater to the travel requirements of the candidates, wherever required and feasible. Chief Secretaries of concerned State Governments have also been requested to extend support of local administration to RRBs for conducting CBTs in secure and safe manner ensuring social distancing.”

According to the Indian Railways, candidates will be checked for the temperature at entry using thermo guns.