Railway Board Decides on Centralized CBT for Departmental Promotions, Ensuring Transparency

Admin

New Delhi: On March 5, 2025, a high level meeting was conducted by the #RailwayBoard. It has been decided that all departmental promotion examinations will be done by #RRB/centralised examination through #CBT.

All zonal railways will make a calendar for the examination. All the examinations will be conducted on the basis of a calendar only.

This has been decided after a long experience of transparent, fair, and highly appreciated examinations conducted by RRB in recent years.

How RRB used to conduct examination without any complaints, with all the transparency: From 2015 to till date more than 7 crores candidates have been examined through computer based tests (#CBT) without any Paper leakage, Impersonation, Remote Log-in, and use of Spy devices.

How was it possible?

  • Selection of exam conducting agency by Open tender
  • Criteria QCBS, ISO certifications, Financials Qualification, CERT-IN certifications, CMMI certification
  • Minimum eligibility criteria, Number of centers, Past experience

Examination centre auditing by Railway team

  • Auditing checklist for all the available facilities – bathroom outside not allowed
  • 100% CCTV coverage and recording starts 2 hours pre-exam and 1 hour post exam
  • IP based CCTV surveillance for better resolution, reliable and uninterrupted connection
  • Isolation from commercial and other residential area
  • Minimum 250 nodes capacity centers are being taken

Infrastructure with power backup-Technical specification

  • Server: CPU speed should be 1.5 GHz or higher, RAM should be 4 GB or higher, screen resolutions should be 1024×768
  • Nodes: RAM should be 2 GB or higher, rest same as server, USB disabled, proxy disabled, internet disabled and keyboard disabled after login

Proprietary Operating System

  • All mouse and key clicks to be recorded with time stamp for audit purpose.
  • Information about city of exam is disclosed about ten days before the actual date of examination.
  • Venue/centre of examination is made available only four days before the exam.
  • Exam centre is allotted through a computerized randomized generation avoiding manual intervention.
  • Inside the centre, the allotment of lab and the nodes including buffer nodes, all are automated, randomized generated.
  • Conducting team and the centre people get the information about the candidate just two hours before the examination.
  • In the examination centers, checking & frisking of candidates is done with Hand-held metal detectors.
  • Biometric attendance (both LTI and digital) is taken before entry & mid of exam and after every bio break.

Also a handwriting sample is taken. This process is repeated at all the stages of examination and at the time of document verification.

  • Aadhaar based Authentication is done at exam centre.
  • N:N comparison – comparison of across shifts, across events for identifying solvers gangs.
  • Question paper is in highly encrypted form (256-bit encryption).
  • Last minute decryption happens only when the candidate actually logs in.
  • No two candidates get the same sequence of questions and options for each question. Everything is randomized and shuffled.
  • There is a complete log maintained for each activity performed by the candidate which determines how he has attempted the questions.

Three separate layers of Invigilation:

  1. ECA team invigilation
  2. Railway invigilation by Officers and Supervisors
  3. Surprise check by Railway vigilance team

1st and 2nd teams are shuffled periodically between labs and centers. As a result, a number of candidates involving in some kinds of malpractice/unfair means are being regularly caught.

Eligibility criteria:

  • All the critical data of eligibility e.g. caste, certificate number, mobile number, marks of identifications, photograph and signature, date of birth, and qualification clearly defined and captured.
  • Application will have QR code to detect fake applications.
  • Admit cards will have a barcode to establish the genuineness of the candidate.

In Computer Based Tests (CBTs), candidates are shown their Question paper, Answer Booklets along with correct Answer Keys. They are also given an opportunity to raise objection regarding correctness of questions and answer keys.