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The National Recruitment Agency (NRA) will conduct a Common Eligibility Test (CET) to screen the shortlisted candidates for Group B and Group C non-technical posts.

The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has approved the setting up of a national agency to conduct tests fro various central government jobs. The National Recruitment Agency (NRA) will conduct computer based online test to screen the candidates at the first level of Staff Selection Commission (SSC), the Railway Recruitment Board (RRB), and the Institute of Banking Service Personnel (IBPS).

This move will pave the way for a transformational reform in the recruitment process for the central government jobs.

At present candidates seeking government jobs will have to appear for different exams conducted by different recruiting agencies for various posts. Candidates have to pay the fee to multiple recruiting agencies to appear for different exams.

These multiple recruitment exams are a burden not only to students but also for the government as it has to bear the expenditure, law, order and security issues, and vendor related problems.

The Common Eligibility Test (CET) will enable the aspirants to appear for one exam to get into any recruiting agency.

The National Recruiting Agency will have representatives from the Ministry of Railways, Ministry of Finance, SSC, RRB, and IBPS. The NRA would be a specialized body that brings the state of the art technology and best practices to central government recruitment.

The government has sanctioned a sum of Rs. 1517 crores for the National Recruitment Agency. Apart from setting up of NRA, the costs will be incurred for setting up examination infrastructure for a period of three years in 117 aspirational districts.

NRA will conduct a separate CET for the three levels of Graduate, 12th pass and 10th pass for the non-technical posts carried out by SSC, RRB, and IBPS.

Based on the score in the CET, the final selection for the recruitment will be made through specialized Tiers 2 and 3 of the examination which will be conducted by the respective recruiting agencies.

The curriculum for the CET would be same as the normal standard. This would greatly ease the burden on the candidates who have to prepare for different curriculums for different recruiting agencies.

The CET score of the candidate will be applicable for a period of 3 years. The best of the valid scores shall be considered the current score of the candidate. There will be no restriction on the number of attempts taken by a candidate to appear in the CET to the upper age limit.

This would go a long way in reducing the hardship of students who prepare for the exams every year.

Initially, the CET scores will be used by SSC, RRB and IBPS recruiting agencies and other central government agencies would adopt it in the coming years.

Candidates will be given the facility to register themselves at the portal and would be given the choice of centers. Ultimately, the aim is to reach a stage where candidates can schedule their tests at the centers of their choice.

Examination centers for the CET exam would be set up at every district to motivate rural candidates to take up the exams and get into the government sector.

Moreover, the CET would be available in multiple languages to enable candidates from different parts of the country to get selected for the jobs.

Some departments have indicated their intention to do away with the second level of the examination and would consider only CET scores and physical and medical examination as the criteria to get selected.

By Gayatri Yellayi