Over 30,000 new posts in railways

The Indian Railways has added as many as 32,000 new posts for permanent recruitment, taking the total to 1,32,646 vacancies that are currently being filled in the national transporter.

Railway Minister Piyush Goyal told the Rajya Sabha during the Question Hour that of the total vacancies as many as 62,907 vacancies are for safety-related activities in level-1 (erstwhile Group D) posts that are being filled by railways.

"The current recruitment being made by Indian Railways is to the tune of 99,000 jobs and only yesterday, we have notified 32,000 new vacancies. The process of filling up 1,32,646 vacancies is currently underway in railways. All these are permanent jobs," he said.

The minister also said that railways is purchasing new machinery worth Rs 7,000 crore during the current year and this will be enhanced to Rs 13,000 crore worth machinery for improving rail infrastructure in the country.

He said this was against Rs 300 crore spent on machinery earlier.

"In the current year, we are buying machinery worth Rs 7,000 crore towards modernising infrastructure. Next year, this purchase of machinery is being enhanced to Rs 13,000 crore and that is the level of investment being made in improving infrastructure. Earlier, only a sum of Rs 300 crore was spent on buying new machinery," he told members.

To another question on the number of women employed by railways, Goyal said due to the technical and hard nature of jobs in Railways lesser women apply.

"However, all our recruitment exams are gender neutral and the selection made through a computerised process. In the past, not enough women have been applying" he said, adding this is changing.

Goyal also pointed out that the accident rate last year has been the lowest.