In the year 2016-2017 there was a decrease in government job recruitment by 10% in comparison to 2015-2016. As per the data given by Minister of State for Personnel Jitendra Singh in the Rajya Sabha, a total of 100933 recommendations for appointment were made by Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), Staff Selection Commission (SSC) and Railway Recruitment Board (RRB) in the year. This is lesser than last year’s figure: ‘A total of 1,11,807 candidates, or 10,874 more, were recommended by these recruitment agencies during 2015-16, according to the minister’s reply,’ reported news agency PTI.

While 5735 selections were made through UPSC, 68880 were through SSC and 26318 were through RRBs. Comparing with last year’s numbers, recruitment has fallen down drastically in the Indian railways; however a larger share of recruitment is expected from the sector in the coming year as Apprentice recruitment is on spree.

Last year, the UPSC recommended 6,866, SSC finalised 25,138 and RRB/ RRCs recommended 79,803 candidates, ‘Jitendra Singh said. ‘A total of 1,13,524 people were selected by these organisations– 8,272 by the UPSC, 58,066 by SSC and 47,186 by RRB/ RRCs– in 2014-15,’ he further added.

However these figures do not include recruitment made by the state governments, banks, other financial institutions, universities, central public sector enterprises, statutory/ autonomous bodies and directly by the ministries/departments without going through the UPSC/ SSC, he further clarified.

This also doesn’t include the contractual recruitment done by various central government bodies.

“Ministries/ departments engage contractual services directly and they only are responsible for appointment of regular employees against vacant posts after completing all necessary procedural formalities. No centralised data of employment in government departments is maintained in this regard,” the minister said.

Indian railways has begun recruitment process for ‘engagement of Act Apprentices under the Apprentices Act 1961 for imparting training at various Divisions/Units/Workshops over Northern Railway.’ Online applications can be submitted till 27 January 2018. The first merit list will be displayed between 15 February 2018 and 28 February 2018. A total of 3162 vacancies are open for recruitment. In order to be eligible, ‘Candidate must have passed 10th class examination or its equivalent (under 10+2 examination system) with minimum 50% marks, in aggregate, from recognized Board and must have passed ITI in relevant trade recognized by Government.’ Details of the recruitment are available at the official website rrcnr.org.

Applicants must be in the age group of 15-24 years. Upper age limit is relaxable by 05 years in case of SC/ST candidates, 3 years in case of OBC candidates. For Persons with Disability, upper age limit is relaxed by 10 years.

While applying, candidates should be very particular about the cluster and units according to their ITI trade. ‘It should not happen that candidate select a Cluster or Unit where there is no training slot requirement for your ITI Trade. In such a situation their application may eventually become meaningless, as he would not be allowed to make any changes after the final submission,’ clarifies the recruiting body.

The Western Railway has decided to enlist the services of 232 personnel of the Maharashtra State Security Corporation (MSSC) and 97 women home guards to ensure the safety of passengers on the suburban railway network.

A.K. Gupta, General Manager, Western Railways, said: “We plan to instil a sense of safety in commuters by installing CCTV cameras and mobile apps for women’s safety. The overall strength of railway officers has increased by 32%. The number of women home guards will now stand at 192. We hope to add more personnel every year.”

The MSSC personnel will be deployed to control crowds on the 34 critical foot overbridges and all stations on the Western Line. The women home guards will be deployed to ensure there is no overcrowding in front of the ladies’ coaches at Andheri station.

The home guards will also assist women constables of the Railway Protection Force, the Mahila Quick Response Teams, to provide assistance to women passengers. The women home guards will also ensure security at platforms and booking offices.

The officers have already attended a two-day briefing and will be now trained by the RPF for three months. They will also have to go through a two-month induction period. The personnel will be provided with mobile phones to inform authorities of suspicious activities. “We will be covering 37 stations. One team will be posted at each station,” an RPF official said.

The railway ministry has conceded it has revised the minimum qualification required to apply for the job of a track maintainer because recent recruits for the position were highly qualified and showed reluctance to work.

The minimum education qualification for the position was Class VIII, which was later increased to Class X.

In July, the minimum qualification required was again revised to make it mandatory for applicants to have Industrial Training Institute certification.

Officials said the applicants appearing for the exam were often found to be Commerce and Science graduates and post- graduates.

“The problem is that when MBAs, BE engineers are joining as trackmen, they were unable to get dignity of labour which is essential. They do not want to walk the tracks and are usually preparing for other competitive exams,” an official said.

Minister of State for Railways Rajen Gohain in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha said yesterday that the railways was getting over qualified personnel.

“Some of the track maintainers recruited in the recent past on Indian Railways possess higher qualification than the minimum prescribed for the post. Some of these highly qualified track maintainers show reluctance to perform manual works required to be carried out by them.

“However, the ministry of railways has revised the minimum qualification required for recruitment as track maintainer to deal with the matter,” the MoS said.

In a major policy decision, Ministry of Railways has comprehensively revised categories of various Railway Stations with a view to make it more practical and rational.

This comes after the Minister of Railways & Coal, Piyush Goyal directed to re-categorize railway stations taking into account earnings, passenger footfall, strategic importance with a view to plan various passenger services and passenger amenities at stations in a more effective and focused manner. It will also help the passenger to have a better experience in relation to travel amenities at stations.

The earlier criteria for station categorisation was based on the annual passenger earnings only. Stations were categorised into 7 categories which A-1, A, B, C, D, E and F.

The criteria for categorisation of stations have now been revised to include footfalls at the station. The stations have been further segregated based on the type and clubbed into 3 groups i.e. non-suburban (NS), suburban (S) and Halt (H). Further these groups have been put in grades ranging from NSG1-6, SG1-3 and HG1-3 respectively.

In the old criteria the number of stations with high passenger footfalls (handling high number of commuter and MST pass holders etc.) could not be covered into the higher category of station which led to these stations being eligible for lower level of amenities.

As per the new criteria the number of footfalls has also been given equal weightage and is taken into account as criteria for categorisation of stations. Therefore, many stations like Kalyan, Panvel, Tambaram, Thane have qualified into the higher category and become eligible for higher level of passenger amenities.

Under this new scheme of categorization of railway stations, the stations have been clubbed into 3 groups namely Non-Suburban, Suburban and Halt. Further, these groups have been put in different grades ranging from 1-6. Accordingly following categories have been formed.

Category of stations	Criteria of Earnings (in Rs.)			Criteria of outward Passengers handled
I. Non-Suburban
NSG 1	More than 500 Crore			More than 20 Million
NSG 2	100 to 500 Crore			10 to 20 Million
NSG 3	20 to 100 Crore			05 to 10 Million
NSG 4	10 to 20 Crore			02 to 05 Million
NSG 5	01 to 10 Crore			01 to 02 Million
NSG 6	Upto 01 Crore			Upto 01 Million
Total of (I) 5976
II. Suburban
SG 1		More than 25 Crore			More than 30 Million
SG 2		10 to 25 Crore			10 to 30 Million
SG 3		Upto 10 Crore			Upto 10 Million
Total of (II) 484
III. Halts
HG 1			More than 50 Lakh			More than 03 lakh
HG 2			05 to 50 lakh			01 to 03 lakh
HG 3			Upto 05 lakh			Upto 01 lakh
Total of (III) 2153
Total Number of stations (I+II+III) 8613

Presently, there are 5976 Non-Suburban Railway Station, 484 Suburban Railway Stations and 2153 Halts, which makes total number of stations as 8613. This categorization of stations has been done for the period 2017-18 to 2022-23.

General Managers shall have powers to categorize a station as NSG-4 category if it is a place of Tourist importance and/or is an important junction station.

In addition, Ministry of Railways has given GMs full powers to sanction out of turn safety related works without any limit. The following amenities will be provided at all the stations irrespective of their category for safe performance of journey by passengers:

• Foot over bridge
• High level platform
• Trolley path for movement of wheel chair

For improving stations and passenger interfaces: More amenities has been provided to lower category of stations like:

• Waiting halls
• Platform shelters
• Lifts
• Escalators
• Digital charts display
• Illumination
• The train/coach indication board

In view of the new criteria even the small station will get the higher level of amenities which will lead to better passenger satisfaction.

A CBI official and his crony, who allegedly manipulated Tatkal ticket reservation system of the railways through an illegal software developed by the former, were operating at pan-India level, officials said here today.

The CBI has arrested its assistant programmer Ajay Garg and his front man Anil Gupta, a private person, for developing and distributing the software to agents for a price, CBI Spokesperson Abhishek Dayal had said yesterday.

Garg and Gupta, who was arrested from Jaunpur in Uttar Pradesh by the central agency and brought here last evening, were questioned till late in the night, the sources said.

During the questioning, it emerged that their network was spread across the country, they said.

The agency has so far identified 10 travel agents who were part of the network but their questioning is exposing more agents who subscribed to their illegal services, they said.

The present version of the software was developed nearly a year back, they said.

The money from the travel agents who booked tickets using his system was collected through bitcoins and hawala channels to avoid scrutiny, he said.

“The case is (being pursued) in line with our policy of having a robust internal mechanism of ensuring probity and having a zero-tolerance towards corruption,” CBI Director Alok Verma had said.

35-year-old software engineer Garg had joined the CBI in 2012 through a selection process and has been working as an assistant programmer. He had also worked with the IRCTC, which handles the ticketing system of the railways, between 2007 and 2011.

The CBI probe so far has indicated that Garg learnt the vulnerabilities of the IRCTC ticketing software during his tenure there which he exploited in his software, they said.

“These vulnerabilities still exist in the IRCTC system that is why his software was able to dodge it for booking hundreds of tickets at one go,” the officials said.

These tickets were genuine and the payments for them went to the railways, they said

Six coaches of the New Delhi-Manduadih Express derailed at the New Delhi Railway Station late on Thursday. Due to the low speed of the train exiting the station, no casualties or injuries have been reported.

The coaches derailed at platform 12 of the New Delhi Railway Station affecting rail traffic on the route and causing delays by three hours.

Of the six coaches that derailed, one was an AC coach, three sleepers, one general and one inspection coach. All coaches are being replaced.

Addressing the Rajya Sabha during the winter session of parliament last week, Railways Minister Piyush Goyal had said, “Derailments were not exclusive to the Indian Territory but countries boasting of sophisticated infrastructural facilities were not immune to it,” in an apparent reference to the Amtrak accident in the Washington state of US.

In the Amtrak accident, at least three people were confirmed dead, and about 100 others were critically injured.

Last month, a local passenger train heading for Ghaziabad derailed near Okhla in Delhi, where one of the wheels of a coach came off, according to officials. No causalities or injuries were reported.

To avoid a tragedy like the Elphinstone Road stampede, which claimed 23 lives, Western Railway (WR) has roped in personnel of Maharashtra State Security Corporation (MSSC) and woman home guards for crowd management at suburban stations.

As many as 232 MSSC personnel and 97 woman home guards were today inducted into WR’s Mumbai Central Division for crowd management, safety, security of passengers, a senior official said.

According to the official, a high-level committee constituted to inquire into the Elphinstone Road station tragedy suggested for augmentation of Railway Protection Force (RPF) cadres in suburban rail network.
“Subsequently, the railway administration gave a nod to outsource the work to MSSC and woman home guards,” he added.

WR General Manager AK Gupta told reporters that the personnel, who were inducted after being given basic training, will be deployed at various suburban stations.

The area of platform is limited, so there was need to ensure systematic movement of passengers. For which, we needed some personnel at the platform to guide and regulate commuters. The MSSC has given their 232 personnel for the job” he said.

“Besides these, we have inducted 97 woman home guards to enhancing the security of women commuters,” he said.

“They will be deployed to provide quick assistance to female commuters in distress, besides managing crowd,” Mr Gupta added.

The General Manager said they would work in coordination with the RPF.

“As of now they have been inducted for six months. If the initiative helps in curbing untoward incidents, we will extend it. Our main aim is to keep trains and platforms secured,” Mr Gupta said.

On September 29, 23 people were killed in a stampede that occurred on a foot-over-bridge linking suburban Elphinstone Road and Parel stations.

To avoid a tragedy like the Elphinstone Road stampede, which claimed 23 lives, Western Railway (WR) has roped in personnel of Maharashtra State Security Corporation (MSSC) and woman home guards for crowd management at suburban stations.

As many as 232 MSSC personnel and 97 woman home guards were today inducted into WR’s Mumbai Central Division for crowd management, safety, security of passengers, a senior official said.

According to the official, a high-level committee constituted to inquire into the Elphinstone Road station tragedy suggested for augmentation of Railway Protection Force (RPF) cadres in suburban rail network.

“Subsequently, the railway administration gave a nod to outsource the work to MSSC and woman home guards,” he added.

WR General Manager AK Gupta told reporters that the personnel, who were inducted after being given basic training, will be deployed at various suburban stations.

“The area of platform is limited, so there was need to ensure systematic movement of passengers. For which, we needed some personnel at the platform to guide and regulate commuters. The MSSC has given their 232 personnel for the job” he said.

“Besides these, we have inducted 97 woman home guards to enhancing the security of women commuters,” he said.

“They will be deployed to provide quick assistance to female commuters in distress, besides managing crowd,” Mr Gupta added.

The General Manager said they would work in coordination with the RPF.

“As of now they have been inducted for six months. If the initiative helps in curbing untoward incidents, we will extend it. Our main aim is to keep trains and platforms secured,” Mr Gupta said.

On September 29, 23 people were killed in a stampede that occurred on a foot-over-bridge linking suburban Elphinstone Road and Parel stations.

Railway Minister Piyush Goyal has directed the IRCTC and the Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) to strengthen cyber-security in the wake of an alleged ticketing scam unearthed by the CBI.

The CBI earlier this week nabbed a software programmer of its anti-corruption division and a former employee of the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) for allegedly operating an illicit software that subverted the railways reservation system.