The National Recruitment Agency will conduct a Common Eligibility Test (CET) to screen and shortlist candidates

The Union Cabinet has given the go ahead for the creation of a National Recruitment Agency. In the process, the government has paved the way for a transformational reform in the recruitment process for central government jobs.

A press release pointed out that candidates seeking government jobs, at present, have to appear for separate examinations conducted by multiple recruiting agencies for various posts for which similar eligibility conditions have been prescribed. As such, candidates have no choice but to pay fees to multiple recruiting agencies. Moreover, they also have to travel long distances to appear in various exams.

The government found these multiple recruitment examinations a burden on candidates. And also on the respective recruitment agencies as it involves avoidable and repetitve expenditure, law and order, security related issues as well as venue related problems. A common eligibility Test would enable the candidates to appear once and apply to any or all of these recruitment agencies for the higher level of examination, said the press release.

In this regard the National Recruitment Agency (NRA), a multi-agency body, will conduct a Common Eligibility Test (CET) to screen and shortlist candidates for the Group B and C (non-technical) posts. The agency will have representatives of Ministry of Railways, Ministry of Finance/Department of Financial Services, the SSC, RRB, & IBPS. The NRA is said to be a specialist body, which will bring state-of-the-art technology and best practices to the field of Central Government recruitment.