The Union cabinet has approved a proposal to set up a National Recruitment Agency (NRA) for conducting the proposed Common Eligibility Test (CET) for recruitment to all non-gazetted posts in the Central government and public sector banks. The proposal to set up NRA for conducting CET was part of the announcements made by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her Union budget speech on February 1 this year. Around 2.5 crore aspirants, who take separate, multiple examinations conducted by different recruiting agencies for selection to around 1.25 lakh government jobs advertised each year, will need to appear for a single, online CET with the test scores remaining valid for three years. CET merit list may be made available to the states by NRA on cost-sharing basis, for undertaking recruitment to state government jobs.