The railways can now verify documents faster and accurately, and this will reduce cases of fake documents being uploaded to qualify for government employment
In a major step to improve the efficiency and to minimize the time period of recruitment, Indian Railways has linked its recruitment portal with DigiLocker. The linking with DigiLocker, a digital document wallet launched by Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, enables candidates to link their digital documents which are as authentic as the physical documents.
This is a strategic move that is expected to help in the simplification of the document verification process, which is an important step in the recruitment process. The railways can now verify documents faster and accurately, and this will reduce cases of fake documents being uploaded to qualify for government employment through DigiLocker.
The current recruitment process for Indian Railways, which involves document scrutiny and different tests, can take about 18–24 months. However, due to the integration of DigiLocker, it is hoped that the time frame in this case will be less than six months.
This will not only be advantageous to the candidates but also to the railways as it will be easier to recruit the right workforce to fill the available vacancies, hence maintaining a strong and effective workforce.
The Railway Board has now decided to make all the recruitments in Indian Railways DigiLocker-based and make document verification fully DigiLocker-based. This integration is not limited to document verification only, but also encompasses issuing call for medical check up and appointment letters through DigiLocker. This approach guarantees that the process of recruitment is smooth and effective from the initial stage to the final one.
After the unlock process, Indian Railways has conducted two major examinations in which more than 23. 7 million candidates. These examinations led to the selection of 1,30,581 candidates as stated by Union Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw to the Rajya Sabha. The recent recruitment activities show the magnitude of the process and the level of sophistication that is required, hence the need for efficient systems such as DigiLocker.
To reduce the time taken in recruitment even more, the Indian Railways have developed a system of putting out an annual recruitment calendar for different categories of Group ‘C’ posts. Out of the annual calendar of centralized employment notifications between January and July 2024, five employment notifications were released for 40,554 vacancies.
These notifications are for various posts like assistant loco pilots, technicians, sub-inspectors, constables in the Railway Protection Force, junior engineers, depot material superintendents, chemical and metallurgical supervisors.
It is a positive development that DigiLocker has been connected to the Indian Railways recruitment website to enhance the employment procedure. With Indian Railways as the largest recruiter in the country, going for DigiLocker is a good example for other recruitment bodies to emulate as they move to a more digitized process.
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