The Indian Railways can now access candidates’ documents faster
New Delhi:
The Indian Railways will accept candidate details from records in their DigiLocker accounts when they apply for railway jobs, thus reducing recruitment time from 18 to 24 months to less than six months, according to a report by Economic Times.
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DigiLocker is a secure cloud-based platform for storage, sharing and verification of documents and certificates. Documents stored in DigiLocker and verified by the cloud-based system via government records are “deemed to be at par with original, physical documents” under India’s law.
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The Indian Railways can now access candidates’ documents faster – an important step in the recruitment process, where lakhs of candidates apply for various roles. Since DigiLocker documents are pulled electronically from the government’s records, chances of fraud are low.
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Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw had told parliament the railways conducted two big exams, where 2.37 crore candidates turned up. Of this, the railways hired 1.3 lakh. The scale of the exams and the variety of posts had necessitated the search for a more efficient method.
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The DigiLocker integration to the hiring process will help simplify the complex and long recruitment process. Recruitment in ‘Group C’ posts in the Indian Railways attract a massive number of candidates, who see job security and stable pay.
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Indian Railways and other agencies that accept DigiLocker documents save a lot in administrative overhead by minimising paper use, and curtailing the verification process.
