2 min readNew DelhiJun 13, 2026 12:19 PM IST
Amid the NEET-UG 2026 paper leak row, Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Friday held a high-level meeting with senior officials to review the Railway Recruitment Board (RRB) recruitment process.
The RRB conducts one of the largest examinations in India for the Railways—the country’s biggest employer, with a workforce of around 12.5 lakh.
Officials said that the minister reviewed the progress made in shifting departmental examinations to computer-based test (CBT) mode and stressed that more tablet-based examinations should be introduced wherever feasible so that recruitment is faster, more efficient, and user-friendly.
Officials said that the Railways is set to hold examinations for 55,229 posts in six categories in the next six months to a year. The upcoming examinations are of Level-1 (32,438 posts), assistant loco-pilots (10,970 posts), non-technical popular categories at the graduate level (5,810 posts), non-technical popular categories at the undergraduate level (3,058 posts) and section controller (368 posts).
Vaishnaw directed the RRB to improve communication with candidates and different stakeholders. “The minister said that misinformation should be countered promptly with correct information, so that candidates receive accurate updates and confidence in the recruitment process remains strong,” a railway official said.
Railways recruited 43,781 candidates across six major categories in the 2025-26 financial year. This includes recruitments of 17,193 assistant loco pilots, 13,416 technicians, 7,333 junior engineers, 4,205 constables, 1,184 paramedical personnel, and 450 sub-inspectors.
The Railways faced a major examination irregularity in 2010 during a test for assistant loco-pilots and assistant station masters. In this case, former RRB Mumbai chairman Satendra Mohan Sharma and nine others were convicted by a CBI court in Hyderabad in 2024 and sentenced to five years of rigorous imprisonment with fines. The Telangana High Court later granted bail to Sharma.
