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Madhya Pradesh: PEB to conduct recruitment tests after CM announces NRA-linked process
Shivraj Singh Chouhan tweeted on August 20 that Madhya Pradesh was the first state in the country to decide to give government jobs on the basis of NRA scores
Madhya Pradesh government has reposed its faith in Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board (MPPEB), commonly known by its Hindi acronym Vyapam, within days of chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan announcing that recruitment for 30,000 vacant government jobs would take place through the common entrance test (CET) of National Recruitment Agency (NRA), officials said.
MP government’s general administration department (GAD) wrote to all government departments last week, informing them that only MPPEB is authorised to conduct the recruitment tests for non-gazetted posts.
MPPEB has also started preparations and invited several IT companies to set up, operate and maintain online test and training centres at government educational institutions in all 52 districts of the state, and issued a schedule on Monday for the recruitment tests of two departments—farmer welfare and school education in January and February 2021, an MPPEB official said, requesting anonymity.
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MPPEB public relations officer JP Gupta said, “The board has released a new schedule on Monday to fill posts in different departments including schools, jails and farmers welfare department. We are just following the instructions of the government. We don’t know about any decision related to the NRA test-based recruitment.”
After the Union cabinet approved the setting up of NRA to conduct a CET for selecting candidates for a majority of central government jobs, Chouhan tweeted on August 20 that Madhya Pradesh was the first state in the country to decide to give government jobs to the youth of the state on the basis of their NRA score.
“Now you (aspirants) will not have to incur expenditure on travelling due to repeated examinations. My children! my priority is to make your life better,” he said.
GAD secretary Rajesh Kaul, in a letter to all heads of the departments and collectors, said, “PEB has been authorised to fill all the posts under non-gazetted service recruitment rules 2013.”
Kaul wrote, “All the departments have already been intimated about it. But... the departments are conducting recruitments on their own, which is against the rules. Now, all the departments and district administration have to follow this rule.”
GAD minister Inder Singh Parmar said, ”It’s true that the CM made announcement about switching to NRA but we can’t wait and solely depend upon a central agency to fill all the posts. So, we have authorised PEB to conduct the recruitment tests.”
“At least for now, PEB will conduct the test as we have promised to fill all the posts by the end of this financial year,” said Parmar.
Earlier, the then Congress –led state government had decided to close down MPPEB due to the multi-layer rigging of recruitment and entrance exam, the Vyapam scam, busted in 2013, which led to the arrest of certain officers in key positions in the organisation. Then chief minister Kamal Nath had announced the introduction of Rajya Karamchari Ayog after closing Vyapam, but nothing happened in this regard.
