Congress leader P Chidambaram on Thursday mocked the Centre’s claim that it will fill up posts lying vacant in Indian Railways. “Railways leave 2,82,976 posts vacant for nearly five years and suddenly wake up to say we will fill them in three months!” he tweeted. “Another jumla!”
On Wednesday, Union minister Piyush Goyal said Railways will recruit around 1.31 lakh employees within the next six months and a lakh more over the next two years. The national transporter plans to provide around 4 lakh jobs over the next two years, he said. Goyal added that the government will implement 10% reservation for upper caste poor in Railways, so that 23,000 vacancies will be filled in the next two years.
However, Chidambaram did not buy these claims. “The story is the same across many departments of the government,” he said. “Vacant posts on one side, unemployed youth on the other.”
Goyal had also said the recruitment will be done in two phases. The first phase will be initiated in February-March 2019, and will be completed by April-May 2020. The second phase of recruitments will be initiated for the vacancies arising out of retirements. This phase will be initiated in May-June 2020 and completed by July-August 2021.
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