Indian Railways to conduct exams to fill 1,40,640 vacancies from December 15, full schedule to be released soon

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New Delhi: Ending the speculations revolving around the Indian Railways entrance examinations, the Railways has decided to conduct the exams for over 1,40,640 job vacancies from December 15, 2020.

The Railways has reportedly received around 2.42 crore applications against the 1,40,640 vacancies.

As per reports, the scrutiny process has been done and the exams will be computer-based.

There are vacancies in three categories in the Railways for which they had received the applications before COVID-19 outbreak. The railways couldn't conduct examinations due to coronavirus induced lockdowns. 

These were 35,208 vacancies for NTPC (non-technical popular categories like guards, office clerks, commercial clerks etc), 1,663 for Isolated & Ministerial categories (Steno & Teaches etc) and 1,03,769 for Level 1 vacancies (track maintainers, pointsman etc).

In all, RRBs had notified a total of 1.40 lakh such vacancies for NTPC categories, Level-1 Posts and isolated and miscellaneous categories. 

SOPs for the conduct of examination of this magnitude are being framed and norms of social distancing and other protocols prescribed by the various Central and State authorities will be reportedly followed.

Notably, the Centre after protected discussions, debates, and litigations, has started conducting the JEE Main exams from September 1, after it was postponed in April due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

The National Testing Agency (NTA) has taken several measures to keep in mind the safety of the students amid coronavirus and has reportedly increased the number of examination centres from 570 to 660. 

Around 8.58 lakh students have registered for the JEE main exams this year.

The NTA will also conduct the NEET exams from next weekend.

Earlier on September 4, the Apex Court refused to entertain the review petition filed by ministers of six opposition-ruled states who were seeking a review of the top court's August 17 order to conduct NEET-UG and JEE (Main) examinations.

The ministers in their plea had claimed that the top court order failed to secure students' "right to life" and ignored "teething logistical difficulties" to be faced in conducting the exams during the COVID-19 pandemic.