One of the largest employers, Indian Railways, is on recruitment spree for filling up more than 1.2 lakh vacancies in group C and group D posts. However, this is half of the total manpower lying vacant under these services of the national transporter, reveals an RTI reply. “According to the Railways, as on 01.09.2018, 2,66,790 (Provisional) of Group C and erstwhile Group D posts are vacant over zonal railways. And this doesn’t include Group A and Group B services,” reads the RTI report carried by news agency Indo-Asian News Service (IANS).

“When asked for a breakdown of number of people retiring and the number of job opportunities generated over the last decade, the data was disturbing. The results show that that from 2008 to 2018, not even in a single year, did more people get jobs than the number of employees who retired. As a result the number of vacancies went up to around 3 lakh,” reported IANS.

The report also says, over the years the number of employees in the railways is decreasing. Every year, more employees retired and lesser jobs are generated.

As per the report, total number of railway employees during 2016-2017 was almost 80,000 lesser than it was during 2008-2009.

The report goes on to reveal that, the anomaly has affected the group D services, the most. As on 2016-2017, the report says, there were 80,612 group D employees which is 83% less than the manpower employed during 2008-2009.

In 2017-2018, a total of 19,100 employees have superannuated from their services.