Infrastructure
Arun Kumar Das
Sep 13, 2022, 10:43 AM | Updated 10:42 AM IST
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Over six lakh B.Tech graduates are competing with over 59 lakh 10th pass and 5.98 lakh candidates who have done ITI courses, among others, for over one lakh gangmen jobs in Indian Railways.
In a massive recruitment drive, the first Stage Computer Based Test (CBT) is being carried out by the Railways to fill up 1,03,769 Level-1 vacancies such as track maintainer, helper/assistant, assistant pointsman across all Zonal Railways/Production Units of the national transporter.
Since the drive is to appoint more than one lakh candidates, this is the biggest recruitment ever in the Railways as till date the exam was conducted for the highest number of vacancies was about 60,000 only.
Till now, the tests have been carried out in two phases, and three more phases will be conducted across the country, said a senior Railway Ministry official.
This time the Railways has taken adequate measures to prevent cheating in the exams. Since there are cases of using dummy candidates in the exam, we are using biometric verification of Aadhar card using thumb impression to prevent impersonation, said the official.
This is a fool-proof method to prevent impersonation, and so far, only one case has been detected in Vadodara.
There are 7,19,556 post graduates, 39,25,822 graduates including BTech, 59,10,255 matriculates and 5,98,855 ITI diploma holders among the 1.1 crore candidates eligible to appear for the test for gangmen jobs, the Level 1 post in Indian Railways.
With Indian Railways accepting all the demands of candidates, over a crore eligible applicants would now be appearing for the test for track maintainers and helpers jobs among other Group D posts in the Non Technical Popular Categories (NTPC).
The minimum qualification for the Level 1 post is completion of Class X.
After the first stage, shortlisted candidates would appear for medical tests only before the final selection.
Medical standards as prescribed in Indian Railway Medical Manual (IRMM) will be used for different posts of Level-1, according to the Railways.
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Arun Kumar Das is a senior journalist covering railways. He can be contacted at akdas2005@gmail.com.