Central Railway apprentice 2026: 2,861 ITI slots open till December 2

The Railway Recruitment Cell of Central Railway has opened applications for 2,861 Act Apprentice training slots for young people who have passed Class 10 and hold an ITI certificate in a relevant trade. The notice, numbered RRC/CR/AA/2026 and dated Tuesday, 3 November 2026, covers five clusters: Mumbai, Bhusawal, Pune, Nagpur and Solapur. Online applications opened on 3 November and close at 5 pm on Wednesday, 2 December 2026, on the cell's website, rrccr.com. The slots are apprenticeship training places under the Apprentices Act, 1961, not permanent railway jobs.

For an ITI pass-out, an apprenticeship with the railways is a way to turn a trade certificate into hands-on training inside a large employer. Act apprenticeships are training places set up under a national law, the Apprentices Act, 1961, so they come with a defined structure rather than an informal arrangement. For young people in the five cluster areas, this notice is a single application route into that training.

The way the slots are spread matters. Most of the places are in the Mumbai cluster. Candidates from the Bhusawal, Pune, Nagpur and Solapur areas have smaller pools to compete for, which matters because applicants can pick only one cluster and cannot switch later.

The selection rules also shape who gets in. Listings of the notice say that merit lists are prepared separately for each cluster, unit, trade and community, and some describe no separate written test or interview. That puts the weight on a candidate's existing qualifications and on picking the right cluster and trade. A candidate who applies in a crowded trade in Mumbai may face stiffer competition than one in a smaller cluster.

There is a clear limit too. An apprenticeship under the Apprentices Act is a training contract, not a job offer. The notice states that it carries no promise of permanent railway employment, so applicants should treat it as paid training and work experience, and plan their next step accordingly.

Peepals calculation: the Mumbai cluster alone accounts for about 60% of all slots (1,712 ÷ 2,861 = 0.598), more than the other four clusters combined (500 + 271 + 221 + 157 = 1,149), and the application window runs for 30 days, from 3 November to 2 December. Our calculation from the reported figures.

Short-term: ITI pass-outs have until 5 pm on 2 December 2026 to apply online. They need to settle on one cluster and one trade before submitting, since they cannot apply to more than one cluster.

Long-term: If all slots are filled, close to 3,000 young people will get structured training under the Apprentices Act in Central Railway's units, adding to the pool of trained technicians in the region.

Who is affected: Class 10 and ITI pass-outs looking for apprenticeships in the Mumbai, Bhusawal, Pune, Nagpur and Solapur clusters; ITI institutes; and the Central Railway units that will train them.

What to watch next: The application window closes at 5 pm on Wednesday, 2 December 2026; merit lists will then be drawn up cluster-wise and trade-wise.

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