Railways asserts no job losses on cards: Will be rightsizing, not downsizing

As reported by The Indian Express earlier, Railways has started exploring ways to merge job profiles in the field units with a view to multi-skilling its nearly 13 lakh employees.

Khati said that due to technological interventions, certain job profiles might change, wherein personnel will be re-skilled, but there will be no job losses. “We will be rightsizing and not downsizing. Let there be no doubt that the Indian Railways will remain the largest employer in the country. We will move from unskilled to more skilled jobs,” he said.

He said Thursday’s order was to surrender non-functional, non-safety vacant posts which would help in creating additional safety posts for new infrastructure projects already underway. He asserted that all ongoing recruitment drives for various categories of posts will continue, adding that posts which have been notified or advertised will not be impacted.

The Railways currently has 12,18,335 employees and spends 65 per cent of its income on salaries and pension.

In a letter dated June 19, financial commissioner of the Railways had told the general managers of all zones that traffic earnings of the national transporter dropped by 58 per cent at the end of May, as compared to the corresponding period of the previous year and that there was a “need to explore new areas of expenditure control and enhancement of earnings”.