Current Affairs Brain Booster for UPSC & State PCS Examination (Topic: National Recruitment Agency)

Current Affairs Brain Booster for UPSC & State PCS Examination

National Recruitment Agency

The Union Cabinet has approved creation of a National Recruitment Agency (NRA) to conduct an online Common Eligibility Test (CET) for selecting candidates for majority of central government jobs.

At present, candidates seeking government jobs have to appear for separate examinations conducted by multiple recruiting agencies for various posts, for which similar eligibility conditions have been prescribed.
Candidates have to pay fee to multiple recruiting agencies and also have to travel long distances for appearing in various exams.
These multiple recruitment examinations are a burden on the candidates, as also on the respective recruitment agencies.

Initially, NRA will organise a CET to screen/shortlist candidates for the Group B and C (non -technical, non-gazetted) posts, which are now being conducted by the Staff Selection Commission (SSC), Railways Recruitment Board (SSC) and Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS). However, the present recruitment agencies– IBPS, RRB and SCC — will remain in place.
The test will be conducted for three levels: graduate, higher secondary (12th pass) and the matriculate (10th pass) candidates.
Based on the screening done at the CET score level, final selection for recruitment shall be made through separate specialised Tiers (II, III, etc.) of examination which shall be conducted by the respective recruitment agencies.
The curriculum for CET would be common.

Aspirants do not have to apply and appear separately for multiple recruitment exams. They will be able to apply once for a single or multiple recruitment exams in various departments and take the CET.
After the CET is conducted, NRA will send the scores of eligible candidates to the respective agencies to continue the recruitment process.
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. Relaxation in the upper age limit shall be given to candidates of SC/ST/OBC and other categories as per the extant policy of the Government.
Candidates will have the facility to give a choice of centres and they would be allotted the chosen centres, based on availability. They will be given an option to schedule their own tests at their choice centres.
Government has sanctioned a sum of Rs 1517.57 crore for the NRA. The expenditure will be undertaken over a period of three years. The cost will also be incurred for setting up exam infrastructure in 117 districts with large numbers of aspirants. The proposal is expected to ease the access to aspirants residing in rural areas.

Candidates will not have to incur additional expenses for travel, boarding, lodging to reach their exam centres that are usually far from their home town. Single exam will reduce the financial burden on candidates.
The availability of exam centres in every district would benefit the female candidates as well. Girls generally depend on a guardian to accompany them in reaching their exam centres if it is far away from their home town. The location of test centres in every district would benefit the candidates, particularly women.
CET would be available in a number of languages, benefitting aspirants from different regions of country. Presently, most of the exams are conducted in English and Hindi languages.