Over 2.5 lakh vacant posts in Railways

Over 2.5 lakh posts are lying vacant in Railways, Rajya Sabha was informed today.
The total number of vacancies in railways is 2,51,936 as on April 2013, Minister of State for Railways Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said in a written reply.
While Northern Railway has the maximum number of vacant posts (28,958), followed by Eastern Railway (24,052), South Western Railway has minimum number of vacancies (6,336).
However, filling up of vacancies is a continuous process and there is always a gap between occurrence of vacancies and processing the same for filling up which involves issue of notification, holding examination, finalisation of select panels and issue of appointment letters.

As on April, 2013, Railways have 13,11,959 employees out of which the number of SC employees is 2,19,682, ST employees is 94,879 and persons with disability is 8,814.
The number of substitutes engaged directly by the General Managers (GM) in various railway zones in last three years is 1784.
GMs have been authorised by Railway Ministry to engage substitutes in exigencies of services against vacancies to avoid railway services getting adversely affected.