Amid the lockdown, Indian Railways will go ahead with the bidding process of Rs 250 crore contract to hire an agency for recruiting nearly 37,000 posts in various posts by holding a pre-bid video conference next week.
The pre-bidding video conference will be held on April 21 and 22 with the probable bidders to address their concerns before formalise the bidding process of the much awaited recruitment agency contract.
Since April 13, senior railway officials are attending offices at Railway Board while fully complying with the social distance norms and other required protocols in the wake of novel coronavirus scare.
As of now there are total 11,439 confirmed cases and 377 deaths for COVID-19 pandemic in the country so far.
The public behemoth has floated an open tender to select an exam conducting agency, a first for the national transporter, to conduct examination for filling up total 46,871 various posts.
We are completing all formalities to hold the video conferencing next week, said a senior railway official.
The decision to hire an agency to conduct massive recruitment test is considered as a right step in the direction of introducing transparency in the recruitment process.
There are about 1.26 crore applicants vying for 35,208 vacancies in the non technical popular categories (NTPC), including undergraduate and graduate posts varying from typist, clerk, time-keeper, station master and goods guard among others.
Besides the selected agency will also be responsible for 1663 posts in ministerial staff category to be filled up in the process.
The pre-bid video conference concerning ministerial staff will be held on April 21 while April 22 will be for the NTPC.
The selected exam conducting agency will conduct the three-stage recruitment test after scrutinising all applications. The recruitment is expected to be completed by March 2021.
Till now railways used to select the exam conducting agency through nomination basis. However, there were complaints of delayed examination process causing worry for applicants. Taking note, the CVC advised the Railways to select the exam conducting agency through tendering process.
Though the lockdown was a setback for the whole process, the Railways is now going ahead for finalisation of agency despite the lockdown.
Indian Railways is one of the largest employers in the country with about 13 lakh employees working in the public transporter.