Indian Railways is set to become the first government department to implement the 10 per cent quota for the general category poor, providing around 23,000 jobs in the next two years, Railways Minister Piyush Goyal said Wednesday. 

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He said the national transporter will recruit around 1.31 lakh employees within the next six months and about a lakh more over the next two years.

The Indian Railways has a sanctioned strength of 15,06,598 employees. Out of these, 12,23,622 personnel are on roll. The remaining 2,82,976 are vacant posts. 

The recruitment for 1,51,548 posts in the railways is going on, leaving 1,31,428 posts still vacant, the minister said at a press conference. 

Approximately, 53,000 and 46,000 railway employees shall retire in 2019-20 and 2020-21, respectively, causing an additional vacancy for around 1 lakh people, he said.

Goyal said the railways plans to provide around 4 lakh jobs in the next two years. 

"We have planned in advance so that no posts will remain vacant in railways anymore. As an when retirements happen, the posts will be filled. Also, railways will be the first government department to implement the 10 per cent quota for the EWS category under the new amendment in which over the next two years, 23,000 jobs will be reserved for them. However, this will not affect the present reservation applicable for other categories like SC, ST, OBC and others," he said.

The recruitments will be done in two phases. The first phase of fresh recruitment of 1,31,328 posts shall be initiated in the month of February-March, 2019.

As per the reservation policy of the government, around 19,715, 9,857 and 35,485 vacancies shall be reserved for SC, ST and OBC candidates (in this phase), respectively.

This cycle shall be completed by April-May, 2020, the Railways minister said.

The second phase of recruitment of approximately 99,000 personnel will be initiated against vacancies arising out of retirements. 

As per the reservation policy, approximately 15,000, 7,500, 27,000 and 10,000 posts shall be reserved for SC, ST, OBC and EWS candidates (in second phase), the railways added.