From conducting entrance exams for professional courses to managing recruitments for various government departments, the Common Entrance Test (CET) Cell has certainly come a long way. So much so that the same cell, which now goes by the name Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA), is having to say ‘no’ to more recruitment requests because it already has too much on its plate. After just having completed the long processes of entrance examinations and counselling undergraduate and postgraduate professional courses, the KEA is flooded with requests to conduct the recruitment process for several departments. KEA officials said the demand now was a far cry from the sporadic requests the authority used to get over the past few years.
“We did get requests earlier from the Food and Civil Supplies Department, the Survey Settlement and Land Records and the Department of Fisheries, followed by the High Court and Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd. But this year, we have got requests from several departments… we haven’t agreed to take on a few, yet,” said a senior official.
While the KEA has agreed to conduct the recruitment to 1,064 posts of staff nurses in 12 colleges, the next immediate process it will take up is the recruitment of assistant professors to first grade colleges in the State. In the pipeline are requests from the Bangalore Development Authority and the Department of Rural Development and Panchayat Raj.
The reasons being cited for the mounting demand for the KEA to be roped in by the departments are the ready availability of software, easy evaluation of objective type questions and the experience in generating merit lists. However, not all requests can be accommodated, KEA officials said.
