U-turn on Railway Recruitment: Govt restores engineering services exams

In an office memorandum to the Chairman, Railway Board, Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) said the decision to restore ESE has been taken after considering Ministry of Railways’ proposal dated October 3, 2024.

“Considering the unique requirement of both technical and non-technical manpower in Ministry of Railways, the in-principle approval of this department to the proposal of Ministry of Railways for recruitment through UPSC-ESE and UPSC-CSE is hereby conveyed subject to… conditions,” reads the DoPT letter dated October 5, 2024.

The department also said that the proposed scheme of recruitment shall not in any way be in contravention to the Cabinet decision dated 24.12.2019, under which a new process of recruitment was brought.

After the DoPT’s approval, within a few hours, the Ministry of Railways wrote to the secretary of Department of Telecommunications, the nodal department for ESE, and UPSC informing them about its decision of recruitment through ESE and CSE.

Noting that the Ministry of Telecommunications has already notified ESE Rules for 2025, with the last date for submission of application indicated as 08.10.2024, Satish Kumar, Chairman and CEO, Railway Board, in the letter said, “It is requested that the participation of Ministry of Railways for recruitment of engineers in various disciplines through ESE-2025 to the IRMS may kindly be added to the existing notification by issuing addendum to it. In order to provide ample opportunity to the candidates for applying, it is proposed that the last date of submission of application may be suitably extended and notified in the UPSC’s website.”

The letter further said the syllabus of the exam as already notified will be equally applicable to IRMS. The ministry also said that tentatively a total of 225 vacancies are available to be filled through ESE-2020 and the new engineers will be called IRMS (Civil), IRMS (Mechanical), IRMS (Electrical), IRMS (S&T) and IRMS (Stores).

Railways was facing difficulties at different levels in finding suitable officers for technical categories as recruitment through ESE was done away with and engineering and non-engineering recruitments were merged under IRMS. “The firm number of vacancies along with category-wise break-up in respect of SC/ST/OBC/ EWS and PwBD will be intimated with the approval of liaison officer in due course,” said Railways Ministry. The tentative number of vacancies to be filled through ESE 2025 are 75 for IRMS (Civil), 40 for IRMS (Mechanical), 50 for IRMS (Electrical), 40 for IRMS (S&T) and 20 for IRMS (Stores).