RRB NTPC examination will be conducted in multiple phases, out of which the first phase will be held from December 28 to January 13, the Railway Recruitment Board (RRB) announced on Thursday. The RRB Non-Technical Popular Category (NTPC) 2019 recruitment examination is slated to continue till March.

In an official notification on its website, RRB said that the link for checking the exam centre and date and downloading of travelling authority for SC/ST candidates will be made available across all official websites 10 days prior to the exam.

Candidates can download the admit card four days prior to the exam.

“The 1st Stage CBT will be held in multiple phases in order to ensure adherence to all the Covid-19 guidelines for the large number of eligible candidates (approx. 1.25 crores). Accordingly the first phase of the Exam is scheduled for 23 lakh candidates approx. to be held from 28.12.2020 to 13.01.2021 in various cities all over the country,” the official notification read.

It added: “The remaining eligible candidates will be scheduled in subsequent phases and will be intimated accordingly.”

In September, the Railway Minister Piyush Goyal had said that the exam will be conducted from December 15. However, the exam was further delayed.

The exam for the Level 1 and Ministerial and Isolated category (MIC) was also delayed and began from November 15.

The application process for the recruitment drive, which had around 1.4 lakh vacancies, were conducted in February 2019 and the exams were initially scheduled to be conducted in June 2019. However, due to a huge number of applicants, only the Paramedical category exams could be conducted and the process to conduct exams for the remaining categories were delayed significantly.

The NTPC recruitment includes positions like Clerk, Time Keeper, Traffic Assistant, Goods Guard, Typist, Commercial Apprentice, and Station Master. A total number of 35,227 vacancies will be filled through this drive.