In a major reform in the recruitment process, the Union cabinet on Wednesday approved the creation of National Recruitment Agency (NRA) for conducting a common eligibility test for central government jobs. The move will allow job-seekers to take one common test instead of multiple exams.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who chaired the cabinet meeting, claimed that the NRA will prove to be a boon for crores of youngsters, saying it will eliminate multiple tests and save precarious time as well as resources.
“The National Recruitment Agency will prove to be a boon for crores of youngsters. Through the Common Eligibility Test, it will eliminate multiple tests and save precious time as well as resources. This will also be a big boost to transparency,” Modi tweeted.
The government has sanctioned a sum of Rs 1,517.57 crore for setting up the NRA, which will be headquartered in Delhi. The multi-agency body will conduct a Common Eligibility Test (CET) to screen or shortlist candidates for the Group B and C (non-technical) posts. NRA will have representatives of Ministry of Railways, Ministry of Finance/Department of Financial Services, the SSC, RRB and IBPS. It is envisioned that the NRA would be a specialist body bringing the state-of-the-art technology and best practices to the field of Central government recruitment.
The government claims the reform will give a major relief to poor candidates and those from rural areas.
“Presently, the candidates have to appear in multiple examinations conducted by multiple agencies. Apart from the examination fees, candidates have to incur additional expenses for travel, boarding, lodging and other such. A single examination would reduce the financial burden on candidates to a large extent,” reads a blog on the website of the prime minister.
The CET score of the candidate shall be valid for a period of three years from the date of declaration of the result. The best of the valid scores shall be deemed to be the current score of the candidate. There shall be no restriction on the number of attempts to be taken by a candidate to appear in the CET subject to the upper age limit.
The NRA will conduct a separate CET each for the three levels of graduate, higher secondary (12th pass) and the matriculate (10th pass) candidates for those non-technical posts to which recruitment is presently carried out by the Staff Selection Commission (SSC), the Railway Recruitment Boards (RRBs) and by the Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS).