On Wednesday, The Union Cabinet gave its nod to set up a National Recruitment Agency (NRA), to conduct a common eligibility test (CET) for all non-gazetted posts including Group B and Group C (non-technical) jobs, setting in motion a major move aimed at streamlining government recruitment.

Under this system, there will be a single online test for around 25 million aspirants, who appear for separate, multiple examinations to join more than 125,000 government jobs every year, whose score will be valid for a period of three years and will serve as a preliminary screening mark for all eligible posts across various central government agencies.

In union budget 2020, the government first proposed the creation of NRA.

Soon after Wednesday’s Cabinet announcement, Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted, ”The #NationalRecruitmentAgency will prove to be a blessing 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.”

NRA, which will have representatives from the ministry of railways, ministry of finance/department of financial services, the Staff Selection Commission (SSC), Railway Recruitment Board (RRB) and the Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS), has been envisioned as “a specialist body bringing the state of the art technology and best practices to the field of central government recruitment”, according to a press release by the government.

Under the new CET system, no limits of attempts has been set for the candidates for taking the exam, said official familiar of the matter. Test will be conducted for the graduate, higher secondary (12th pass) and the matriculate (10th pass) levels with a common curriculum, and will serve as a screening system based on which candidates can apply for jobs in different government agencies. Based on their CET score, the candidates may have to take additional examinations at the agency level, they added.

The government said it will also work towards enhancing examination infrastructure across the country with special focus on 117 aspirational districts.

“#Cabinet Decision to set up National Recruitment Agency (NRA) to conduct Common Eligibility Test (CET) for preliminary selection to various Government vacancies is a revolutionary reform brought in by visionary intervention of PM @narendramodi,” minister for personnel, public grievances and pensions, Jitendra Singh, wrote on Twitter.

”To bring ease of recruitment, ease of selection and ease of living for aspirant candidates, NRA has been has taken place. It will provide level playing field, a great boon particularly for economically deprived who cannot afford travelling to multiple centres, youth in far flung areas with difficulty to reach different centres and women candidates who are unable to travel to different cities because of constraints of travel and stay,” he Department of personnel and training secretary C Chandramouli said, ”In the central government there are more than 20 recruitment agencies, at a press conference. “Right now, we are bringing three agencies under the National Recruitment Agency and will eventually bring all of them under it.”