Amid the pandemic when jobs are continuing to disappear by leaps and bounds and an overwhelming hopelessness has gripped the country’s youths, Union Cabinet’s approval on Wednesday for setting up of the National Recruitment Agency (NRA) which will serve as an independent body for conducting examinations for government jobs has come as a much-needed balm. While there will be little room for making a critical analysis of the step since it was a long-clamoured and long-overdue streamlining exercise in government job recruitment processes, the general question, which is, will the Central government be more magnanimous in its policy as a prime recruiter, will somehow remain. It will be undeniable that over the years, there is a perceptible trend to downsize government workforce accounting to various reasons such as emergence of technological alternatives which replace human interventions, non-relevancy of posts in current socio-economic scenario and so on.

Technically speaking, the policy document contains quite a number of points that promise ‘ease’ on a host of fronts- recruitment, selection, job placement etc. From the basics of the new system, one can gather an idea that thrust has been given to free the aspirants from the burden of coughing out exam-wise separate fees and also from the hazard of travelling far-from-home exam centres for taking multiple exams. This was a practical step since it was becoming increasingly cumbersome to arrange and professionally conduct sector-wise exams and more because of the fact that each year there are routine addition of lakhs of graduates that makes them technically eligible to join the contesting brigade in race for government jobs. Initially, three major recruiting bodies namely Railway Recruitment Board(s) [RRBs], Staff Selection Commission(SSC) and Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS) will be brought under the fold, although plans are in the offing to use the Common Eligibility Test (CET) score which will have a validity of three years for all recruitments in future including those conducted by State governments as well as private firms. A major aspect of the exercise which is going to be gigantic by any standard, is the huge technological intervention with the central server being the repository of a standardised question bank. At a time when paper leaks and scams, exam date clashes and inordinate delays in bringing out results are steady features, the cumulative effect of which takes a heavy toll on the psychological well-being of aspirants, this structural overhauling which will count heavily on technology to counter these negativities, is something to welcome.

But, at the end of the day, government(s) must play the role of a big-hearted and regular recruiter by discarding the policy of overlooking at ‘backlogs’. Journey of the NRA will only be “historic” or “landmark” then.