The Railways said on Friday that it is not going to surrender any safety category posts required for train operations and maintenance and review is been done only for non- safety category vacant posts so that additional safety posts can be created for new railway infrastructure projects.
In a tweet, the ministry said that all ongoing recruitments drive for selection against different categories of posts will continue as usual.
"Indian Railways is not going to surrender any safety category posts required for train operations and maintenance. Review is been done only for non-safety category vacant posts so that additional safety posts can be created for new railway infrastructure projects being developed at fast speed. All ongoing recruitments drives for selection against different categories of posts will continue as usual," the ministry said.
Director General (HR) Railway Board, Anand S Khati addressed a press conference and said that due to technological interventions in the national transporter, certain job profiles might change and personnel will be re-skilled but there will be no job losses.
"We will be rightsizing and not downsizing. Let there be no doubt that the Indian Railways will remain the largest employer in the country. We will move from unskilled to more skilled jobs," he said.
A letter approved by Financial Commissioner, Railways, to GMs said that the freezing of new posts, review of posts created in the last two years and surrendering of 50 per cent of existing vacancies was part of "an action plan for economic measure and rationalisation of expenditure".
Khati said posts which have been notified or advertised for will not be impacted in any way.
The Railways currently has 12.18 lakh (12,18,335) employees and spends 65 per cent of its income on payment of salaries and pension.
Since 2018, the Railways has notified 72,274 vacancies in safety category and 68,366 in non-safety category taking the total number of vacancies notified to 1,40,640.
( With inputs from ANI )