Over 15K asst loco pilots to be recruited at all-India level

Kolkata: Dispelling the “news on social media” that there are insufficient loco pilots, the Eastern Railways on Wednesday said soon recruitment arrangements for more than 15000 posts of assistant loco pilots are going to be made at the all-India level in a transparent manner through Railway Recruitment Board

An issued statement shared that news doing rounds is not “entirely true”. It clarified that loco pilots/assistant loco pilots retire like other employees of the entire Eastern Railway, resulting in a fixed number of vacancies every month. New ones are then recruited against those vacancies as per the requirement or the vacancies are filled by promotion of junior drivers i.e. vacancies are going to be filled by promotion quota of around 1260 train drivers in the month of August.

It was learnt that soon more than 15000 assistant loco pilots will be recruited at the all-India level. Further, the Eastern Railway claimed that over the last 10 years, the loco pilots have experienced unprecedented improvement in their working environment. It claimed that about 558 running rooms in the India Railways Network, meant for them to take rest, are now air conditioned. Even advanced facilities like foot massager etc. are available for the train crews.

The duty hours of loco pilots are now under continuous monitoring. “Arrangements have been made for sufficient leisure hours after each trip. The duty hours are also limited within the comfort zone. This year in the month of June the average hours of Loco Pilots is below 7 hours. Except utmost necessity, the duty hours are not extended,” it claimed.

Kausik Mitra, CPRO, Eastern Railway said: “Eastern Railway always tries best to provide sufficient leisure hours for the Loco Pilots as well as other facilities and better work environment. Moreover, Eastern Railway has processed for induction of Assistant Loco Pilots through direct recruitment quota through RRB (Railway Recruitment Board) and 1257 numbers of Assistant Loco Pilots through departmental promotional quota. By recruiting skilled personnel through both direct and promotional quota Eastern Railway aims to enhance the efficiency and reliability of its train services as well as increasing the existing pool of crews engaged in Eastern Railway for driving trains.”