Unbelievable: Twenty million apply for 100,000 posts in Railways recruitment drive

Indian Railways have received more than 20 million applicants for about 100,000 jobs, a railway ministry official has said.

For assistant loco pilots and technicians alone, over five million online applications have been received, the official said.

The last date for submission of applications is March 31 and applications have been invited for over 89,000 posts — 26,502 vacancies for Group C and 62,907 for Group D.

Online tests will be held for jobs in the railway police, locomotive drivers and technicians in 15 languages.

Officials say they are overwhelmed by the response to the medium and low-level jobs.

“Primary registration is done by candidates with their name and address. The next step is application where they fill up other details and pay the fee,” a senior official said.

In preliminary registration of RRB application form, candidates have to provide educational qualification along with other details such as name, father’s name, date of birth, community, email ID and mobile number.

The Railway Recruitment Board (RRB) will tentatively conduct the exam during April and May, 2018. After releasing the notification for the vacancies, the railways made many changes with respect to criteria, age and educational qualification, after protests by job aspirants in several states.

India has one of the largest railway networks in the world, used by around 23 million passengers daily. Built mostly under British colonial rule, the railway network is the backbone of public transport.

With more than a million workers, India’s railways is also one of the world’s largest employers.