Over 77,000 posts vacant in signal, traffic departments in Indian Railways

There are 77,079 vacancies under the signal and telecommunications and traffic transportation departments all across the country of the 3.12 lakh non-gazetted posts lying vacant across the country, as of 23 December 2022.

According to the multiple replies given in the Rajya Sabha by railways minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, there are 14,815 vacancies in the signal and telecommunications department and 62,264 in the traffic transportation department.

The highest number is in the civil engineering department with 87,654 vacancies across the country, followed by 64,346 in the mechanical department and 38,096 in the electrical department.

In the south eastern zone, there are 17,811 vacancies for non-gazetted posts and 150 vacant gazetted posts as of 3 February 2023. Vaishnaw had given a detailed response to Congress president and Rajya Sabha MP Mallikarjun Kharge.

In Bhubaneswar, in 2022-23 only 1,008 candidates were empanelled for various Group ‘C’ posts and in 2021-22, only 104. 

The highest number of vacancies is in the northern railways zone (39,226), which includes 39,059 non gazetted vacancies and 167 gazetted vacancies in the zone. This is followed by 30,785 vacancies in the western zone (30,515 plus 270), 30,735 in the eastern zone, and 28,876 in the central zone.

The least number of vacancies are in the south western railways zone with 6,638 in non-gazetted and 58 in gazetted posts.

Totally, there are 3,15,780 vacancies in Group A,B,C categories across the country.

In response to a series of questions asked by Kharge in December 2022, Vaishnaw had replied that only 4,625 posts were filled across the country for both Group A and C vacancies in 2021-22. The highest number of recruitments happened in 2019-20 with 1,27,697 vacancies being filled. It must be remembered that 2019 was the year of the general elections.

Highlighting the stark difference between the retirements and recruitments, Vaishaw had stated in Rajya Sabha that 4,666 posts were filled in 2021-22, as against the 44,847 employees who had retired.

In 2020-21, the numbers were 5,744 and 46,988 respectively. He was responding to queries raised by Congress MP Phulo Devi Netam.

It was also revealed that as on 1 January 2023, there were 7,427 vacancies in the OBC category, 6,112 in SC and 5,131 in ST categories.

Responding to IUML MP from Kerala Abdul Wahab, the railway ministry had acknowledged that members of the National Railway Mazdoor Union, central railway, had protested at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT) in front of Divisional Railway Manager's office after duty hours to express their demand on various issues including filling up of vacancies in different categories of Non-Gazetted Group ‘C’ posts.

In central zone alone, the total number of vacant non-gazetted group ‘C’ posts on Central Railway is 28,650 comprising 14,203 safety category posts and 14,447 non-safety category posts, said the minister to Wahab.

Data from both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha responses reveal that between 2019-20 and 2020-21, the number of staff employed by the Indian Railways decreased to 12,33,700 from 12,35,900. During 2020-21, a total of 4.4 lakh candidates had given exams for 1,923 vacancies in the ministerial and isolated categories, while 1.26 crore candidates had given the exam for 35,281 vacancies in the non-technical popular categories.

According to a report in The Hindu, the minister had underscored that the Indian Railways would fill nearly 1.35 lakh vacancies this year. Nearly 3.65 crore aspirants had applied between 2020 and 2022 for jobs in the Indian Railways.