NRA to start conducting common online test for govt jobs from September: Jitendra Singh

The National Recruitment Agency (NRA) would start conducting online tests for a select category of government jobs from September, Minister of State for Personnel Jitendra Singh said on Wednesday.

The NRA will conduct the Common Eligibility Test (CET) to screen/shortlist candidates for jobs in government sector for which recruitment is currently carried out through the Staff Selection Commission (SSC), Railway Recruitment Boards (RRBs), and Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS), he said.

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“NRA will conduct an only preliminary screening of candidates. The final recruitment will be done through domain-specific examinations or tests to be conducted by respective agencies viz. SSC, RRBs, and IBPS. Based on the score obtained in CET conducted by NRA, candidates may appear in domain-specific exams/tests to be conducted by respective recruitment agencies,” Singh said in a written reply to Lok Sabha.

The NRA would identify language experts to translate the question bank/paper in all regional languages included in the 8th schedule of the Constitution, as per requirement and subject to an adequate number of candidates opting to take tests in the regional language, he said.

“It is expected that NRA would start conducting CET from September,2021 onwards,” the minister said.

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The government has set up the NRA, vide order dated August 28, 2020, as an independent, professional, specialist organisation for the conduct of computer-based online Common Eligibility Test (CET) to shortlist candidates for vacancies of Group ‘B’ Non-Gazetted posts, Group ‘B’ Gazetted posts, which are exempted from consultation with the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC); Group ‘C’ posts in the government and equivalent posts (where no such classifications exist) in instrumentalities of the government, for which similar eligibility conditions have been prescribed, he said.

“NRA has been set up to provide the same platform to all candidates at the nearest District HQ and with a view to set a new standard of equity and inclusiveness in recruitment,” Singh said.