Railways to re-engage retired staff to overcome manpower shortage 

Railways re-engaging retired employees to fill vacancies, offering fixed monthly payment, travel allowance, and extension based on performance.

Amid increasing number of train accidents and dwindling manpower in various categories across the network, the Railways has decided to re-engage retired employees against existing vacancies.

According to railway sources, General Managers of all zonal railways and production units were empowered to appoint the retired staff who qualified certain parameters such as medical fitness, good rating in performance appraisals in the last five years of service etc. While the maximum age would be 65, the re-engaged employees would get a fixed monthly payment equivalent to their last drawn pay minus basic pension during the contract period.

Among other benefits, the re-engaged retired employees would be entitled to travelling allowance, for the purpose of commuting between the residence and place of work. In case of official tours, they would be eligible for travelling allowance and dearness allowance as per their entitlement at the time of retirement.

Also read: What can the Railways do to stop accidents? | Explained

In an October 15, 2024, order, the Railway Board said the decision to re-engage retired staff was taken “keeping in view the difficulties being experienced by zonal railways due to vacant posts of supervisors/staff.”

General Managers were told that non-gazetted employees who retired in Pay Level-7 to Pay Level-7 could be considered for re-engagement subject to condition that such contractual job would be in the same pay level held by the employee at the time of retirement. The retired employees being re-engaged should not have been covered under the Safety Related Retirement Scheme/Liberalised Active Retirement Scheme for Guaranteed Employment for Safety Staff (LARSGESS).

As on July 1, 2023, the Railways reported 2,61,233 vacancies against the sanctioned 14,63,286 posts in non-gazetted categories. The Northern Railway topped the list with 32,468 vacancies followed by the Eastern Railway, the Western Railway and the Central Railway with 29,869, 25,597 and 25,281 vacancies respectively, the sources said.