Govt to set up National Recruitment Agency to hold common govt job exam

Three airports of Jaipur, Thiruvanthapuram and Guwahati to be leased out for development, operation and maintenance under PPP for 50 years

The government on Wednesday approved the proposal to set up a National Recruitment Agency (NRA) to conduct a common examination for jobs in the government and state-owned banks. This “historic decision”, Information & Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar said, was taken at a meeting of the Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
 
This Common Eligibility Test will help "youngsters of the country find jobs easily”, said Javadekar, explaining that this will remove the hassle of multiple tests for various government jobs and make the process smoother and simpler. “Candidates for government jobs appear for multiple examinations and pay repetitive fees. The NRA will remove these pain points with a common test for multiple government jobs.”

Minister of State in Prime Minister’s Office Jitendra Singh called this a "revolutionary reform”.
 
The NRA will hold online exams for non-gazetted government posts and each district will have at least one exam centre. The score in these exams would be valid for three years and the candidate would have the option of taking the exam again to improve the score. The best of the three scores would be used during the selection process.

 
In another major development, the Cabinet decided to lease out three airports — Jaipur, Thiruvanthapuram and Guwahati — for development, operation and maintenance on a public-private partnership (PPP) model for 50 years.

 
In a relief for sugarcane farmers, the Cabinet decided to raise the fair and remunerative price to be paid by sugar mills to Rs 285 per quintal for the 2020-21 season. The move would benefit 10 million sugarcane farmers, said Javadekar.
 
In view of the coronavirus pandemic and the stress in the economy because of that, it was decided that Power Finance Corporation (PFC) and Rural Electrification Corporation (REC) would, in a one-time move, extend loans to discoms beyond the cap of 25% of working capital of revenue in the previous year.
 
The Cabinet also approved the proposal to allow all banks and non-banking financial companies to offer loans to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) at discounted rates. There, however, would be mechanism in place to ensure that there is double discounting.