Railways Recruitment Exam 2018: 1.9 crore candidates to appear for about 63,000 posts over next few phases

Railways Recruitment Exam 2018: In one of the largest recruitment exercises in the world, as many as 1.9 crore candidates will be appearing for Indian Railways' exam in the next phases of the online test. 

The examinations will be conducted in 3 shifts per day for 10 days, spread up to 31st August, 2018. The next set of exams will be conducted on August 10, 13, 14, 17, 20, 21, 29, 30 and 31. For the first time, question papers are being provided in 15 languages.

The first exam of the series was held yesterday in which 4.83 lakh candidates were scheduled to take the exam.

"On 9th August, a total of 4.83 lakh candidates i.e. approximately 1.60 lakh per shift was scheduled. There has been a tremendous response and an unprecedented number of more than 74% of candidates have attended the examination today. Total 3,59,605 candidates have participated in August 9 examination. This attendance is a record for all RRB- examinations conducted so far," said Railways in a statement.

The exam got surrounded in controversy over allotment of centres beyond 500 km of the radius of the candidates. However, Railways had clarified saying about 83 per cent candidates were allocated exam centres within 500 km.

"Around 83% candidates have been provided centres within 500 kilometers. Special care has been taken to ensure that almost all women candidates and Persons with Disability are provided centres within 200 kilometers," said the national transporter.

The railways is also running special trains for the candidates appearing in the exam.

"Those candidates who could not be accommodated within 500 kilometer, Indian Railways has taken extra efforts and arranged exam special trains from places like Deoria, Chhapra, Patna, Darbhanga, Muzaffarpur, Ara to destinations such as Secunderabad, Bhopal, Indore, NCR etc. So far 10 pairs of such special trains have been mobilized and more trains will be planned in future," it said.

Presently two recruitment notifications- one for Assistant Loco Pilots (ALPs) and the other for Level-I (erstwhile group D) posts, for filling up about 1.2 lakh vacancies are under process.

"Total Posts of Assistant Loco Pilots (ALPs) and Technicians are around 60,000. About 47.55 lakhs candidates have applied for these Posts. Vacancies for Level-I posts (erstwhile group D) are 63,000 and around 1.9 crore candidates have applied for these posts," the railways has said.

A total of 2.4 crore candidates have applied for these vacancies making it one of the largest recruitment exercise in the world.