Railways to continue ongoing recruitment drive, says "No net job loss"

Ministry of Railways on Friday said that all ongoing recruitment drives for various categories of posts will continue, allaying the fear of any ‘net job loss’ in railways.

New Delhi:Amid the reports of freezing new posts creation, except for safety, as a part of the rationalization of expenditure, Ministry of Railways, on Friday, clarified that all the ongoing recruitment drives for various categories of posts will continue and there is "no net job loss" in Railways.

"Indian Railways will not surrender any safety category posts requires for train operations and maintenance. Surrendering of non-functional, non-safety vacant posts would help in creating additional safety posts for new Railway Infrastructure Projects being developed at a fast speed," said Ministry's statement.

However, Railways will also conduct reorientation and repositioning of resources due to the advent of technology. Anand S Khati, Director General Human Resources, Railway Board, said in a briefing, "Due to technological intervention, we are moving away from unskilled jobs. We won't curtail jobs, there won't be any job cuts, but job profiles may change. We don't want to downsize but rightsize."

The statement came in the wake of a letter issued by Railway Board, on Thursday, in which all zonal railways have been directed to freeze new posts, except for safety category, till further order, under the Action Plan for Economic Measure and Rationalization of Expenditure. It also stated reviewing of posts created in the last 2 years, and if, recruitment has not been done against those posts, reviewing on the same for surrendering.

"All ongoing recruitment driver for various categories of posts will continue as usual. No net job reduction in Railways" informed the Ministry.

Khati added, "In the financial year 2019-20, the CAPEX on IT infrastructure was Rs 1.5 lakh crore. For 2020-21, the capital expenditure for up-gradation of infrastructure and IT is Rs 1.61 lakh crore. When the focus is so much on modernization and automation, it may have some impact on manpower."

The Railway official added that there are nearly 12 lakh employees in Indian Railways and 65 per cent of its expenditure goes to the salaries and pensions.

On Thursday, Railway Board Chairman, VK Yadav also mentioned that the introduction of 151 private trains will only give an opportunity for job creation and there will be bigger migration of jobs towards the skilled sector in the near future.

As per the data given by Ministry of Railways, there is a backlog of 2.90 lakh posts in Indian Railways, as of now, out of which the recruitment process for around 1.40 lakh has begun since 2018. Under the Safety category, there are 72,274 vacancies have been notified, whereas in the Non-Safety category, there are 68,366 vacancies.