Railway Budget 2021: Mega Recruitment Drive Soon To Fill Up 2.9 lakh vacancies!  

Bhubaneswar: With the pandemic giving a grave blow to the employment generation in the country, especially in the private sector, the unemployment rate in the country in December 2020 had again risen to a high of 9 per cent, as per the report of CMIE (Centre For Monitoring Indian Economy).

In the backdrop of such leaner job creation in the private sector, the Modi-led government is believed to have initiated steps to go for filling up of the large-scale vacancies in the central government departments, including railways.

The Railway Budget 2021-22 to be presented along with the Union Budget on February 1 (Monday) may spell out in details the road map of recruitment in railways, feel observers.

RAILWAY RECRUITMENT BONANZA

The Indian Railways is likely to announce a major recruitment drive during the second quarter of the current financial year, informed sources. At present, the Indian Railways is saddled with huge vacancies at the level of Group – C and Level -1. The total vacancies (including Group C and Level-1) in 2020 stand at a massive 2.90 lakh, the sources revealed.

Among the Group-C posts, the total vacancies in ticket checking cadre stand at around 7,784. Northern Railway has the highest TTE vacancies in the country, added sources.

TTE VACANCIES IN ODISHA

The TTE vacancies in Odisha stood at around 137, as per highly placed sources in the ECoR here.

It needs mentioning that only in the last month the Indian Railways claimed to have conducted a mega recruitment drive to fill a whopping 1.4 lakh vacancies in Group - C and Level-1, though the recruitment drive was due since 2019.

NATIONAL RECRUITMENT AGENCY

But the twist this time is the recruitment for the new vacancies in railways and other central government departments will be conducted by National Recruitment Agency (NRA).

The NRA will conduct a common entrance test (CET) and assign scores to individual candidates. The NRA assigned scores will remain valid for 3-years, as per the MoPT notification.

The centralised recruitment agency will conduct exams twice a year. There will be no bar on attempts, but the upper age-limit bar will apply to the CET conducted by NRA.

However, the final recruitment will be carried out by Railway Recruitment Boards (RRBs) after conducting the required tier –II or III exams, explained an official in RRB Bhubaneswar.