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Bhubaneswar: After the question papers of Railway Recruitment Board (RRB) Junior Engineer (JE) Computer Based Test (CBT) stage 2 allegedly went viral on social media, the Indian Railways has started searching a new agency that will handle the online examinations of the RRBs.
“The flawless conduct of CBTs for RRBs require the Examination Conducting Agency (ECA) to undertake meticulous planning, large scale mobilisation of resources and efficient capturing, handling and processing of data. The examination software (version) used should be certified and thoroughly tested for ensuring integrity of the examination. Adopting certified technological security measures in protecting and transmitting sensitive data is another very important requirement,” read a notification issued by the RRB on Wednesday.
Role of ECA
Major activities to be undertaken by ECA for safe conduct of CBTs under multiple shifts are as under:
Pre Examination
- Identification, selection and preparation of adequate number of standard venues in major cities and towns for the conduct of Computer Based Tests within stipulated time. These examination centers should have a robust LAN with state of the art networking devices and sufficient power back up to ensure an uninterrupted exam. These examination centers should be within city municipality limits with good road connectivity and meet the parameters set by RRBs.
- Scheduling of candidates to ensure uniform distribution for multiple shifts and generation of E-Call letters. Special care is required for scheduling of Persons with Benchmark Disability (PwBD) candidates to PwBD friendly venues at accessible locations.
- Pre-audit of all examination venues for parameters such as Zero-Black spot CCTV coverage, mock testing of the system at full load covering all aspects to avoid failures during examination due to delay in downloading of Question Paper(QP) to primary sever and candidate nodes, buffering issues, taking over by secondary server in case of problem in primary server, interruption in power supply, re-login issues of computer nodes, etc.
- Sending communications to the candidates by e-mail and/or SMS at various stages and providing helpdesk facilities for the candidates.
- Maintain a robust question bank with correct translations and options/answer keys in a safe and secure manner for preparation of adequate number of question sets and automated encrypted administration just before the start of a shift. Further, as scores of candidates are ‘Normalized’, the difficulty level of QPs in various shifts has to be maintained uniformly.
During Examination
End-to-End support including technical, operational, logistic and manpower related for various activities like-
- Security & frisking of Candidates
- Invigilation in labs
- Capturing Biometric of Candidates (photo & thumb impression)
- Establishment of a control room at Railway Board and at 21 RRB offices with robust dashboards for real-time monitoring of examinations
- Ensure a seamless, secure conduct of examination
- Depending on the posts and examination scheme there may be
- Multiple stages of examination some of which are specialized such as Computer Based Aptitude Test, Typing Skill Test, Stenography Test etc.
- Storage and transmission of examination logs and other documents in a safe and secure mode within the prescribed time frame
Post Examination
- Processing the objections received from candidates with regard to questions /answer keys
- Timely submission of examination result to RRBs as per the approved merit list preparation Protocol
- Support RRBs during Document Verification as regards biometric validation, candidate documents etc.
- For the entire exam process, supplying the requisite information to RRB for replying to RTI queries, Court cases etc. related to questions/answer keys and other activities performed by them on behalf of RRBs.
The ECA will have to conduct CBTs across India in 15 languages including Hindi, English, Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Konkani, Marathi, Manipuri, Malayalam, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu for over 1 crore candidates appearing for the exam in various shifts, added the RRB.
The RRB further stated that the ECA should have the capacity to host over 1 lakh candidates in one shift across the country.
Appointment Process Of ECA
The RRB will meet the prospective bidders on September 25, 2019. During the meeting, each company will be given a slot of 10 minutes and they will be called one after another in alphabetical order for explaining their Power-Point presentation.
Interested bidders can apply through mail by September 23.
