Common Eligibility Test

Presently multiple examinations by various agencies viz. Railways, IBPS, SSC are held for recruiting group B and C staff for various organizations of central govt. In the budget speech of 2020–21, the finance minister Nirmala Sitaraman proposed setting up National Recruitment Agency in order to replace multiple examinations for various government job recruitment in India by Central Govt. The upcoming CET will replace all these exams, which will save job seekers time and energy from filling multiple forms and focusing on all the examinations. ^[3]

The CET will be held twice a year and the scores will be valid for the next three years from the date of declaration of result. The best of CET scores will be considered as the current score of the candidate.

The examination will be conducted as online examination, also the candidates will have to apply online for this examination.^[4] This test will be based on a multiple-choice objective type question paper.

There will be no limit on the number of attempts for taking this examination, but the upper age limit will be there. However, the 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.

Here are the top three government exams by which the Common Eligibility Test gets replaced: Staff Selection Commission (SSC), NTPC Railway Recruitment Board (RRB), and Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS).^[5]

There are 22 languages in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India, out of which this examination is conducted in 12 languages.^[6]

For the ease of the candidates, each district will have at least one examination center, and in total around 1000 examination centers will be made .^[7]

The scores of CET will be shared with central government, state government, union territories, public sector undertakings and private sector, and it can also be used for recruitment in their respective departments and agencies /companies. ^[8]