Indian Railways has recruited 5.56 lakh people between 2014-15 and 2026-27 (up to 30 June 2026), according to a reply tabled in the Lok Sabha on July 22, 2026, in the ongoing monsoon session. That figure marks a jump of roughly 54,000 recruits, from 5.02 lakh, compared to what the Railway Ministry had told the House just over a year earlier, in April last year, when the same post-2014 window was measured only up to 2023-24.
In other words, in the space of about two-and-a-half years, between the close of 2023-24 and mid-2026, the Railways added over half a lakh recruits to its rolls, even as the pre-2014 benchmark stayed fixed.
The baseline for comparison has not moved: recruitment during 2004-05 to 2013-14 remains pegged at 4.11 lakh in both the 2025 and 2026 answers. It is the post-2014 count that continues to climb as more recruitment cycles are completed and tallied.
Annual calendar system helped regularise intakes
A big part of this acceleration, the Ministry says, comes from the ‘annual calendar’ system introduced in 2024 for Group C recruitment. It promises aspirants more regular opportunities, certainty of exam dates, and faster processing from notification to appointment.
Under this calendar, recruitment for 1,61,889 non-gazetted vacancies has been undertaken across 2024, 2025, and 2026 combined.
The year 2024 saw the heaviest rounds of recruitment: 10 Centralised Employment Notifications (CENs) covering 92,116 vacancies, spanning posts like Assistant Loco Pilots, Technicians, RPF Sub-Inspectors and Constables, Junior Engineers, Paramedical staff, and level-1 categories such as Track Maintainers and Pointsmen. First-stage Computer Based Tests (CBT) for all these posts have been completed, drawing 3.58 crore candidates in total, while the level-1 exam alone pulled in over 1.08 crore candidates.
| Indicator | Lok Sabha reply (April 2025) | Lok Sabha reply (22 July 2026) | What changed |
| Recruitment during 2004-05 to 2013-14 | 4.11 lakh | 4.11 lakh | No change in the pre-2014 benchmark |
| Recruitment during 2014-15 onwards | 5.02 lakh (up to 2023-24) | 5.56 lakh (up to 30 June 2026) | About 54,000 more recruits added |
| Period covered | 2014-15 to 2023-24 | 2014-15 to 2026-27 | Recruitment window extended by about 2½ years |
| Group C annual recruitment calendar | Introduced in 2024 | Continued with recruitment for 1,61,889 vacancies across 2024-26 | Ministry says the calendar has regularised recruitment |
Last year, brought nine CENs for 51,970 vacancies, notified in phases through the year — from 10,970 Assistant Loco Pilot posts in March to 22,195 Level-1 posts in December. First-stage CBTs for 29,775 of these posts are already done, with over 90.9 lakh candidates appearing across exams for Section Controllers, ALPs, JE/DMS/CMA, Technicians, Paramedical staff, and Non-Technical Popular Categories (NTPC).
Story continues below this ad
2026 has so far seen three CENs issued for 17,803 vacancies — 11,127 Assistant Loco Pilot posts notified in March, 6,557 Technician posts in May, and 119 Section Controller posts in June.
Applications vs vacancies
In 2024, 92,116 vacancies drew 3.58 crore applicants, roughly 389 hopefuls chasing every single post on average. The gap was widest for RPF Sub-Inspectors, where 15.35 lakh candidates competed for just 452 vacancies, a ratio of nearly 3,400 applicants per post. Non-Technical Popular Categories – Under-Graduate (NTPC-UG) wasn’t far behind, with almost 1,837 applicants per vacancy.
The pattern repeated in 2025. Against the 29,775 posts for which first-stage exams have been completed so far, 90.96 lakh candidates showed up, an average of about 306 applicants per post. Section Controller posts were the most contested, with 4.33 lakh candidates for just 368 vacancies, a ratio of nearly 1,179 to one.
For the 2026 CENs, covering 17,803 vacancies for Assistant Loco Pilots (ALPs), Technicians and Section Controllers, the Ministry’s reply does not yet include candidate turnout figures, since these notifications were issued only between March and June this year and exams are still pending.
Where things stand now
Story continues below this ad
For the current year, 2026-27 (up to June 30, 2026), the Ministry says panels for more than 3,300 candidates have already been finalised across posts including Technicians, Junior Engineers, Paramedical staff, Ministerial & Isolated categories, and Assistant Loco Pilots, with the majority in safety-related categories.
On reservations, the government’s answer stays general: SC, ST, OBC and EWS candidates continue to get quota benefits as per existing government norms, though no fresh category-wise vacancy breakup was placed on record this time.
On contractual hiring, the Ministry reiterated its long-standing position that such appointments are a temporary, stop-gap measure used only to keep operations running smoothly until regular selections are completed, and are not meant to be a substitute for permanent recruitment.
The Ministry also used the reply to defend the integrity of its exam process, stating that despite the scale of these recruitment drives, some involving mobilisation of crores of candidates across over a hundred cities in fifteen languages, no instance of paper leakage or similar malpractice has occurred through the entire cycle.
