92 lakh hopefuls took the exam aimed to fill up over 18,000 vacancies in various categories.
In an endeavour to overcome malpractices in recruitment, bring together the vast pool of talent in India, and to facilitate selection of the best ones, the Indian Railways recently held the world’s ‘largest’ online exam. The examination, which was conducted to fill up over 18,000 vacancies in various categories, saw an overwhelming participation from more than 92 lakh candidates.
2.73 lakh qualified the preliminary exam and were called for written test on January 17–19. The online examination, which was meant to fill up 18,252 graduate-level group-3 positions, was managed by the Railway Recruitment Board. The open positions under this cadre included, assistant station master, goods guard, inquiry-cum-reservation clerk, traffic and commercial apprentice and junior accounts assistant.
Considering the occurrence of errors and malpractices in the earlier manually conducted recruitment system, such a move was very much required to make the process smooth, streamlined and most of all, accurate and bias-free.
Trying to keep the process as transparent as possible, the Railways introduced the system of showing answer papers online to examinees a week after the examination. The system revealed to the examinees the answers they got correct and allowed them an opportunity to raise objections, if any, till January 30.
The system was equipped with advanced analysis abilities, with psychological tests for the positions of assistant station masters and typing test for that of senior clerks.
The appointment letters, to the successful candidates, are expected to reach by May, 2017. Presently, there are about 2 lakh vacancies in the Railways, which have about 13 lakh employees. However, all the vacancies will not be filled up as many posts are being reportedly frozen at the moment.
The Railways will begin their next recruitment drive for about 20,000 vacancies, including the posts of assistant loco pilots and technical supervisors, in the next phase.