Cabinet eases procedure of selection for Railways, PSU bank jobs

National Recruitment Agency to be used for conducting common eligibility test

The Union Cabinet on Wednesday moved to ease the selection process for non-gazetted staff in the biggest recruiters, Indian Railways and banks, and those chosen through staff selection commission, amid the ongoing unemployment crisis.

This process could later be extended to other public sector undertakings, state government entities, as well as the private sector. 

According to I&B Minister Prakash Javadekar, and MoS in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) Jitendra Singh, the Cabinet approved the creation of a National Recrui­tment Agency (NRA) for conducting a common eligibility test (CET) for such jobs.

Representatives from the railway ministry, department of financial services, staff selection commission (SSC), railway recruitment board (RRB), and Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS) will be part of the NRA.

Following the entrance tests, there will be further examinations depending on the specialisation required for these jobs. Candidates will be screened and shortlisted for the Group B and Group C (non-technical) posts based on the CET. Initially, the CET will be the basis for recruitment in the railways, IBPS, and SSC, but other agencies will be included in due course.

Railways is the biggest recruiter in India. At present, the recruitment process is conducted through authorised recruiting agencies such as the Union Public Service Comm­ission (UPSC), RRBs, and Rail­way Recruitment Cells (RRCs). 

The number of candidates empanelled for various posts in the Railways in the last three years was 84,534. This year, it is expected to be 18,268 (provisional). 

Jaipur, Guwahati, Thiruvananthapuram airports to be leased
 

A proposal to lease out airports at Jaipur, Guwahati and Thiruvananthapuram through public-private partnership (PPP) for 50 years was approved. Adani Enterprises had won the rights to run six airports including these three — the other three being Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Mangalore — through the PPP model after a competitive bidding process in February 2019.
 

Increase in fair and remunerative price of sugarcane 
 

• The minimum price sugar mills pay to sugarcane growers will be increased by Rs 10 to Rs 285 per quintal for the next marketing year starting October 2020. 
• The government had fixed sugarcane Fair and Remunerative Price (FRP) at Rs 275 per quintal for the current 2019-20 marketing year

(With inputs from Sanjeeb Mukherjee, Shine Jacob andArup Roychoudhury)