New Delhi: Faced with recent scams in the recruitment of constables in paramilitary forces, the government has approved a new hiring scheme which aims at making the process more objective and allows maximum use of technology.

According to the new recruitment policy for the central forces approved by the ministry of home affairs, tainted officers will find no place during the appointments.

“No officer against whom departmental proceedings for major penalty is pending will be associated with the recruitment process. Similarly, an officer against whom charges of bungling in previous recruitment have been proved, will not be associated with it for the next five years,” the new policy says.

No officer belonging to the state in which the recruitment is being done will be a member of any recruitment board for that state. The biometric methods will be used at all stages of recruitment.

The new application forms will now be designed centrally in the Optical Mark Reader (OMR) sheet format so that it can be scrutinised promptly with the help of computers.

The physical efficiency test will be only qualifying in nature and will not carry any marks and the written test will consist of OMR-based objective type multiple-choice questions. The question papers will be set centrally and there will be no interview.

The government has also decided to launch a website along with a helpline and a complaint line, giving telephone numbers and SMS-based assistance.

The new recruitment scheme came in the wake of two subsequent scams related to the appointment of constables in CRPF.

In May, the CBI had arrested 11 people, including a CRPF inspector general, a DIG and two commandants after a country-wide raids in connection with alleged corruption and bungling in the recruitment of anti-naxal force COBRA.

In February, the CBI, in a similar case, had arrested the force’s DIG in Lucknow, a head constable and a tout.

Following these, home minister P Chidambaram had said the process should be “clean” as paramilitary forces will emerge as the largest government recruiter in the next five years.

“I hope this (the alleged scam) is the last and should not be repeated,” he had said in a stern message.

Home ministry officials said the CRPF, BSF, CISF, ITBP, SSB and NSG have been authorised to raise 123 new battalions which would be coming up in the next five years.

Each battalion of the forces will have about 1,100 personnel and thus the total number of youngsters including women to be recruited by them would be over 1.35 lakh.