One of the big four audit companies – EY, PwC, Deloitte or KPMG – will be identified to study rationalisation of gazetted manpower across the Indian Railways.

Also, given the technological development and changes in operational and maintenance practices, they will assess the level of gazetted manpower needed in the Railways in the coming years, said Pradeep Kumar, Member (Staff), Railways Board.

Spurt in applications “We are getting an external firm to do the bench-marking for us along with setting international standards,” said Kumar at a press conference on Tuesday. He, however, declined to comment on recommendations of the Bibek Debroy panel. Sharing data on the number of applicants for the post of loco-pilots, which shows that applications for the same or lower posts have almost doubled over the last two-three years, Kumar said this is an indicator of the unemployment level.

He also stated that the “quantum jump in number of applicants shows the faith of candidates in the railway examination system.”

Previous years In 2010, for 23,324 posts, there were 12.2 lakh applicants, of which 4.9 lakh candidates appeared in the exam. In 2012, there were 29,184 posts, for which there were 13.06 lakh applicants and 7.01 lakh candidates took the exams. In 2014, there were 26,567 posts, for which there were 31.88 lakh applicants and 15.01 lakh candidates took the exam.

The Railways also plans to start taking online examinations, starting with two categories, which will be widened later. “If we take online exams for 1.8 crore people (the number of applicants who take railway exams in a year), then there will be logistical problems. So, we will phase it out and first have online exams for two categories SSE and JE,” he said.

For the post of senior section engineer (SSE) and junior engineer (JE), the exact applicant details will be known later this year. But, in October 2014, for 6,000 posts in these two categories, there were 14 lakh applications.

mamuni.das@thehindu.co.in

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW