Railways Stalls Recruitment While 3.12 Lakh Posts Remain Vacant, Contract Staff Rises to 7.5 Lakh

Thiruvananthapuram: Indian Railways continues to delay recruitment despite having 3.12 lakh vacant posts across critical departments. Instead of appointing new staff, the Railways is increasingly depending on contract workers, whose number has now crossed 7.5 lakh. While lakhs of sanctioned positions remain unfilled, no urgent action has been taken to speed up hiring.
Most of the vacancies are in essential categories like loco pilots, mechanical, electrical, signalling, and commercial wings. Even after cutting 2% of total posts every year, the staff shortage remains serious. In the early 2000s, the Railways had over 16 lakh permanent employees. Today, that number has dropped to 12.20 lakh.
The assistant loco pilot category, one of the most vital for rail operations, is among the worst affected. Although 17,966 vacancies were identified and both preliminary and main exams were conducted, the recruitment process has stalled. Candidates who cleared the written rounds continue to wait as the Railway Recruitment Board fails to publish the final merit list post-medical examination. The delay raises serious concerns over the Railways’ commitment to filling essential posts that directly impact train operations and safety.
Lack of adequate training facilities is another bottleneck. Southern Railway, which covers two divisions in Kerala and four in Tamil Nadu, has infrastructure to train only 150 assistant loco pilots at a time. This limitation has compounded the delay in onboarding new recruits. In 2024, the Railways invited applications for 9,970 assistant loco pilot posts, but even preliminary arrangements for the examination are yet to be made.
Southern Railway alone has 25,000 vacancies, of which 195 are in Group A—top-level officers—and 15,228 in Group C, which includes operational and technical roles like Divisional Engineers, Chief Engineers, Senior Section Officers, Station Masters, Loco Pilots, and Guards. While these posts remain vacant, operations continue to be sustained by temporary staff. In the engineering division alone, 19,702 contract employees are working. The commercial department has 464 contract staff, the security department 18, and the medical wing 137.
Despite the scale of vacancies and continued reliance on temporary personnel, no timeline has been announced by the Railways or the Centre regarding completion of pending appointments.