Indian Railways has completed 43,230 recruitments in the current fiscal across various safety and non-safety categories, including technicians, junior engineers, paramedical staff, sub-inspectors and constables of the Railway Protection Force, and Assistant Loco Pilots. 15,873 candidates have been empanelled for Assistant Loco Pilot vacancies notified in 2024. First stage computer based tests for 9,970 ALP vacancies notified in 2025 have been completed, and 11,127 fresh ALP vacancies were notified in March 2026.

Between 2004-05 and 2013-14 recruitments amounted to 0.411 million (mn). Between 2014-15 and 2024-25 recruitments totalled 0.508 mn. Recruitments during 2025-26 till date amount to 43,230.

Occurrence and filling of vacancies are continuous processes given the size, spatial distribution and operational criticality of Indian Railways, and vacancies are filled primarily by placement of indents with recruitment agencies as per operational and technological requirements. The ministry said the Railway Recruitment Boards examinations required large scale mobilisation of resources and manpower training, and that the processes were completed in a transparent manner following laid down guidelines without any instance of paper leakage or similar malpractice.

The introduction of an Annual Calendar for recruitment from 2024 has been intended to provide more opportunities, certainty of examinations and faster recruitment, training and appointments for aspirants. Presently recruitment against 1,54,213 vacancies of non-gazetted personnel has been taken up as per the Annual Calendar for 2024 to 2026. In 2024 ten Centralised Employment Notifications were issued for 92,116 vacancies and first stage or single stage computer based tests for those posts have been completed with a total of 35,859,270 candidates appearing.

Panels for more than 43,000 candidates across technicians, junior engineers, paramedical categories, sub-inspectors and constables and Assistant Loco Pilots have been finalised, with the majority in safety categories. Waterless urinals have been progressively installed in locomotives and, as on 28 February 2026, more than 2,800 locomotives have been provided with these fittings to improve working conditions for loco pilots, the minister informed the Rajya Sabha.