Even as railway job aspirants, mainly in Bihar and also on social media, continued to protest against the result of the Non Technical Popular Category (NTPC) recruitment exam released earlier this month, Railways stuck to its guns saying all processes were as per rules and that no one group of aspirants would get any unfair advantage over others in landing a railway job.
Controversy over the railway recruitment process or, for that matter, the recruitment process by any large government agency, is not new. This time, the controversy is surrounding how many people will actually be eligible for how many vacancies and whether there is a level playing field. Railways has taken to social media multiple times to explain that everything is kosher. Moreover, all the conditions governing the recruitment and screening are always published in the detailed notification for the recruitment drive concerned, it said.
In fact, to negate any controversy, Railways disclosed the answered papers of the screening exam to all its candidates. Candidates are also allowed to raise objections which Railway Recruitment Boards clarify. It is only after this process is over that the result is declared and candidates are shortlisted for the next round.
The sheer scale of applications and shortlisted candidates in Railways makes these drives a highly talked-about subject every time a drive is carried out.
In the earlier days, each Railway Recruitment Board would carry out its exam separately. That practice was stopped eventually to start centralised recruitment—like the current drive. Moreover, the longstanding policy in Railways has been to reduce staff cost by way of reducing staff strength. That is why these recruitment drives happen after a gap of years and not with any fixed periodicity.
The last time this kind of exam was held was in 2016 when Railways set out to fill around 18000 vacancies. But at that time such posts were being filled which required only graduate as a minimum qualification.
What is the current controversy?
Railways is recruiting in 35,281 vacant posts in various categories ranging from junior clerk, train assistant, guard, time keeper etc to station master across its verticals in its zones.
Around 11,000 of these vacancies require 10+2 (12th pass) as the minimum qualification to apply. The rest are higher pay posts which require graduation as the minimum qualification. All the posts are spread across five pay grades — from level 2 to level 6.
For instance, Junior clerk is a level 2 post for which being a Class 12 pass is the minimum qualification. Station Master is a Level 6 post for which being at least a graduate is a must. In Level 2, the starting pay is Rs 19,900 whereas in Level 6 it is around Rs 35,400.
Since there were 1.25 crore candidates that had applied for these jobs, Railways held a common test, called Computer-Based Test-1, for all candidates as a screening process. The tests were held in multiple shifts across several days in 2021.
Railways says that this was done since being Class 12 pass is a minimum qualification and not a “maximum qualification”, nothing would have legally stopped a graduate from sitting for an exam meant for a Class 12 pass anyway.
Now, the real test will be in the next stage, called Computer Based Test-2 (CBT-2), which is scheduled to be held in mid-February. Railways said that CBT-2 will be as per “graded difficulty” wherein every level will have a separate exam fit for that level’s qualification. For instance Level 2, which has posts like Junior Time Keeper, Accounts Clerk etc, will have separate exam, with a difficulty level meant for 12th pass candidates. Similarly, the CBT-2 exam for Level 5, which has posts like Senior Clerk, Goods Guard etc, will have a separate exam whose difficulty level is meant for graduate aspirants.
In order to make more people compete for these jobs, Railways has made the rule this time that for each level, the number of qualifying candidates it shortlists for the CBT-2 or the next round, will be 20 times the number of available posts vacant. In the 2016 recruitment, it shortlisted 15 times the vacancy. Earlier than that, the rule was to shortlist 10 times the vacancy.
That’s why this time for the 35,281 vacancies, the total number of “applications” shortlisted for the next round is over 7 lakh.
But here is the catch. The real number of actual candidates who have been shortlisted for second round is not really 7 lakh but 3.84 lakh.
Like a class-12 pass candidate, based on his choice and test score, may have been shortlisted for both Level 2 and 3 vacancies. Similarly, a graduate candidate may have been shortlisted for all the vacancies in all levels. That’s how the number of the shortlisted for CBT-2 now stands at 7,05,446. This is as per notification, as Railways says shortlisting would be based on application. Which means, if person A has applied for Level 2 and also for Level 5, then person A will be counted in both the categories while 20 times application is shortlisted.
The agitators are claiming that those with higher qualification will get a shot at cracking jobs meant for those with lower qualifications and spoil their chance. But Railways said that it is not that simple.
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Railways has decided that while someone who is shortlisted for CBT 2 in multiple levels may be able to sit for the tests, but that will not translate into that person actually getting multiple jobs.
This is because in the final round, called document verification, Railways will hold the process for the top level posts, that is Level 6 first, followed by Level 5 and so on. No person who is empaneled to get a job in one level will be considered for the subsequent level. In effect, no one person can “hold” two confirmed railway job offers in two different levels at a time.
“We will hold the document verification for the higher levels first. That way, if someone qualifies for the job of, say Station Master, will no longer be considered for the subsequent lower-level jobs, like that of a TTE or others,” said a chairman of an RRB who did not wish to be named. “But if someone says that he does not want a higher pay job and would rather go for a lower-level job, then that’s their choice, but that is highly unlikely.”