DMRC CRA Syllabus, Exam Pattern, Eligibility

The vacancies were scrapped in June 2021 and nothing has been advertised since, so no date or figure here is live. The pattern below comes from Advt. No. DMRC/HR/RECTT./I/2019, the only published statement of how DMRC recruits this post, and it has been stable across DMRC's non-executive notices.

Two papers, same day, same centre

You must qualify separately in each paper. Pass one, fail the other, and the attempt is over. The call to the next stage then goes on the combined merit of both papers, category wise, within the zone of consideration. Where the CBT runs in more than one shift, normalisation applies. DMRC reserves the right to fix the minimum qualifying marks for each component, so the bar in each paper is not published in advance.

How CRA differs from the other posts in the same notice

Only two post codes in the whole advertisement carry a third stage, and CRA is one of them. The psycho test is qualifying and adds nothing to merit; the selection process section explains why it is there.

DMRC publishes no syllabus for this paper. The advertisement names the subjects and stops: no topic lists, no annexures, no question count per subject.

The weight between the Paper I subjects is not published. A source offering you "25 questions from reasoning, 30 from quantitative aptitude" for a DMRC CRA paper is not reading that from the advertisement.

The clause about knowledge of the discipline or trade is written to cover every post in the notice at once. For the engineering and ITI posts it means the diploma subject. CRA asks only for a graduation in any discipline, so there is no common discipline to examine and the general subjects carry the paper. That is a reading, not something DMRC states.

Note the English weight: 60 of the 180 questions, in a paper of its own that has to be qualified on its own. For a customer-facing post, deliberate.

From Advt. No. DMRC/HR/RECTT./I/2019, whose vacancies were later scrapped.

Qualification

A three or four year graduation in any discipline from a Government recognised university, plus computer literacy, meaning a certificate in a computer application course of at least six weeks. No experience. Indian nationality.

Candidates awaiting their final result could apply, provisionally, but had to prove they had passed by the date DMRC published the CBT, psycho test or skill test result, through a declaration in the public domain, or lose the candidature.

Age, and every relaxation allowed

CRA was 18 to 28 years as on 1 December 2019.

Ex-servicemen reservation is horizontal, adjusted within the selected candidate's own category.

The medical bar, which disqualifies more candidates than the degree does

CRA is an Aye-One (A-1) post under the Indian Railway Medical Manual, the strictest standard in the advertisement and shared only with Fire Inspector among the non-executive posts. DMRC states the job requires the highest standard of medical fitness, including naked vision of 6/6.

Lasik surgery bars the post. The advertisement names the posts a candidate who has had Lasik may still hold: Assistant Programmer, Legal Assistant, Accounts Assistant, Stores Assistant, Assistant (CC), Office Assistant and Stenographer. CRA is not among them.

DMRC pays for the first medical; a second one, or a re-examination you ask for, is at your cost. Fail it and no alternative employment is offered. For the same reason the post carried no PwBD reservation: in 2019 that went to three non-technical post codes only, Accounts Assistant, Office Assistant and Stenographer.

Conditions that catch people out

• You could apply for more than one post, paying separately for each.
• Anyone employed in a Government department, PSU or autonomous body must bring a No Objection Certificate to the psycho test or the medical.
• Caste, EWS and PwBD certificates must be in DMRC's own formats. No other is accepted.
• Candidature is provisional throughout, the onus of meeting every requirement stays on the candidate, and selection confers no right to appointment: DMRC must also be satisfied on an inquiry into character and antecedents.

Three stages, from the 2019 advertisement.

1. Computer Based Test, two papers on the same day at the same centre. Qualify separately in each, then rank on the combined merit of both, category wise. Question counts, durations and the one-third deduction are in the exam pattern section.
2. Psycho test, qualifying only. It contributes nothing to merit.
3. Medical examination at the Aye-One (A-1) standard, with naked vision of 6/6. Lasik surgery bars the post, and a candidate who fails here is offered no alternative employment. The eligibility section gives the detail.

In DMRC's words, the process judges different facets of knowledge, skills, comprehension, aptitude and physical fitness, and a candidate has to pass through each stage successfully before being adjudged suitable.

Why the psycho test is here at all

The answer is in the job profile. A CRA's career progression is towards Station Controller or Train Operator, and those are the roles a metro screens psychometrically. You are recruited to the customer care centre and assessed against where the grade leads. Two post codes in the whole 2019 notice carried a third stage: CRA, with the psycho test, and Stenographer, with a skill test.

After selection: bond, training, probation

Three smaller rules

• Candidates called for joining are paid sleeper class railway fare by the shortest route from the station nearest their home town to Delhi. Nothing is paid for attending a test.
• Canvassing in any form disqualifies a candidate.
• The court of jurisdiction is at Delhi only.

The advertised scale

DMRC pays on Industrial Dearness Allowance scales, not the Central Government pay matrix. The figure is a scale from the starting basic to the ceiling of the grade, and the starting basic is the number that matters at joining. On top of it, DMRC lists Industrial DA as applicable from time to time, perks, HRA or lease accommodation, medical benefit, EPF, gratuity and insurance, per the extant rules of the corporation.

What you commit in return

A surety bond of ₹1,50,000 plus GST and a cost of training of ₹20,000 plus GST, against a minimum of three years of service and 90 days of notice before resigning. Probation is two years including training. Read the scale against that, and against the working day: 8 to 12 hours daily depending on the footfall of the station, on shift duty including night shift.

The 2019 cycle closed on 20 January 2020. The procedure below is DMRC's standing one.

How DMRC takes applications

1. Online only, at delhimetrorail.com. No other mode is accepted, and no hard copies are needed.
2. Open Career, find the notification by its number and register. An application sequence number and password reach the email and mobile you give.
3. Fill the form, upload the documents, pay online. Until the payment succeeds you are not registered.
4. Download the payment acknowledgment slip, with the sequence number and transaction ID, for later correspondence.

Uploads and size limits

Keep spare copies of that photograph: it follows you through the recruitment.

Fee

₹500 for UR, EWS and OBC including ex-servicemen; ₹250 for SC, ST, PwBD and women; transaction charges on top. It is non-refundable once paid, and anyone applying for more than one post pays it separately for each.

Your email and mobile number must stay active for the whole recruitment, and are fixed once given: DMRC will not entertain a request to change the mailing address, email or mobile number.

CRA belonged to DMRC's last open-market recruitment, Advt. No. DMRC/HR/RECTT./I/2019.

CRA alone was 386 of the 929 regular non-executive posts, far the largest single post code in the notice, and the category split was SC 58, ST 46, OBC 57, EWS 38 and UR 187, with 55 ex-servicemen on a horizontal basis. That is the measure of what the scrapping notice cancelled.

Where a CRA works

At a Customer Care Centre in a metro station, on shift duty including night shift, 8 to 12 hours a day depending on footfall. Progression is towards Station Controller or Train Operator. Posting is likely anywhere in India, since DMRC also executes and advises on metro projects outside Delhi. The corporation employs about 14,500 people and carries about 3 million passengers a day.

DMRC publishes no list of examination cities. The CBT is held at centres notified on the admit card, and the admit card is also how you learn the date.

What DMRC does state is where the later stages happen: candidates who clear the CBT are called at Delhi or the National Capital Region, which for CRA means the psycho test and the medical examination. Plan a trip to Delhi for those, at your own cost. The only fare DMRC pays is sleeper class, and only to candidates called for joining.

On the day

• Two papers at the same centre, Paper I then Paper II.
• More than one shift is possible, and normalisation applies where it happens.
• No mobile phone or communication device in the hall. Carrying one is deemed misconduct, and immediate expulsion is among the consequences DMRC names.

Dates of the CBT, the result and all recruitment related information appear only on delhimetrorail.com.

There is no live date. Below is the last CRA recruitment, start to finish.

Candidates who sat the CBT waited sixteen months for the notice that ended it. A fresh notice would appear at delhimetrorail.com, Careers with its issue and closing dates.

Eligible candidates whose applications appear on the Master list download the admit card from delhimetrorail.com, on the schedule notified there. The link also reaches the registered email, but the download happens on the DMRC site, and DMRC has authorised no other agency, vendor or website to issue its admit cards.

An admit card proves nothing about eligibility. Its issue, or passing the CBT, psycho test, skill test or medical, or a place on the final merit list, is not proof of eligibility, and no candidate acquires a right to appointment by having appeared in or passed a test.

Carry the downloaded admit card, photo identity and the same photograph used on the form. No mobile phone or communication device. At the psycho test and the medical, anyone employed in a Government department, PSU or autonomous body needs a No Objection Certificate, and caste, EWS and PwBD certificates must be in DMRC's own formats.

The CRA result was cancelled with the vacancies. The notice of 18 June 2021 supersedes the advertised vacancy numbers and notifies the outcome of the result for RNE10 accordingly. No panel was ever formed.

Its status statement of 18 August 2022 lists every post code with its progress, mostly empanelled candidates called for document verification and the numbers who joined. RNE10 reads: vacancies scrapped. Only RNE14 Office Assistant reads the same way, scrapped by notice dated 27.08.2020.

When a DMRC recruitment finishes, score cards, response sheets and a per-post-code result appear on delhimetrorail.com, followed by revised lists and panel extensions. A panel lives two years from approval.

No CRA cut-off exists, and none ever will for this cycle. The vacancies were scrapped before a panel was formed, so no last-candidate score was reached. A number circulating as a "DMRC CRA cut-off" does not come from a DMRC document.

DMRC does not publish a qualifying bar in advance either. It reserves the right to fix the minimum standard or qualifying marks for each component of selection, and there are two bars rather than one: a separate qualifying mark in each paper, then a merit position on the two together, category wise. So a good combined score is no help if Paper II falls short.

Where the CBT runs across shifts, published marks are normalised scores, not raw counts of correct answers. And the last gate has nothing to do with marks at all: a candidate who tops the merit list and fails the A-1 medical is offered no alternative employment.

Cut-offs, when they exist, appear with the result on delhimetrorail.com.

Check the medical first

Before anything else. CRA is A-1 with naked vision of 6/6, and Lasik surgery bars the post. Fail that and no amount of preparation matters. It is the cheapest thing to check now and the most expensive to discover at the end.

Then prepare to the real pattern

• Paper II is a separate qualifying paper. Sixty English questions in 45 minutes, and failing it ends the attempt whatever Paper I scored. Anyone practising one combined 180-question paper has the wrong model.
• Roughly 45 seconds a question, in both papers. Practise at that pace or you are training the wrong habit.
• Three wrong answers cancel a right one. Guess accordingly.
• Sit the two papers back to back on one day, because that is how DMRC holds them.

Do not buy a topic list DMRC never published

The advertisement names four subjects and gives no per-topic breakdown. Any product that hands you one has invented it. Prepare the named subjects at general graduate level and let the paper decide the weights.

The psycho test is not something to cram

It is qualifying only, and it exists because the grade leads to Station Controller and Train Operator. Metro psychometric batteries test attention, reaction and judgement under time pressure. There is no syllabus and nothing to memorise.

Know what you would be signing

A bond of ₹1,50,000 plus GST and training cost of ₹20,000 plus GST, three years minimum service, 90 days notice, two years probation with examinations in it, shift duty including nights, and posting anywhere in India.

One last lesson from this particular recruitment: 386 vacancies were advertised, the CBT was held, a result was reached, and the whole post code was scrapped on a review of manpower. That is a real risk of applying to a corporation instead of a commission, and it argues for building the common aptitude core that transfers to other papers.

DMRC publishes no question papers and no answer keys for its recruitment CBTs, and runs no objection window on a key.

What it does release goes to the candidate who sat the paper, not to the public: a score card and final response sheet in the individual login, issued after the examination. For the 2019 recruitment those came out on 14 May 2020, with a separate notice on the disclosure of marks that August. DMRC also published its own FAQ for that recruitment on 22 September 2020.

All of it appears on delhimetrorail.com, Careers, and nowhere else. Practise against the published pattern instead, which the exam pattern section sets out.

• DMRC, Careers, with an Archives page for closed advertisements. A fresh CRA notice would appear here
• Advt. No. DMRC/HR/RECTT./I/2019, 14 December 2019, 8 pages: the source for the pay scale, the vacancies and their category split, the qualification, the A-1 standard and Lasik exclusion, the age relaxations, the CBT, the fee and the bond
• Addendum I, 1 January 2020, extending the last date to 20 January 2020
• Notice of 14 July 2020, keeping the recruitment in abeyance
• Notice of 18 June 2021, scrapping all 386 CRA vacancies
• Status of Open Market Recruitment, 18 August 2022, post code by post code
• Status of induction from panels, 15 November 2021

Is DMRC recruiting Customer Relations Assistants right now?

No. The post was last advertised on 14 December 2019 as post code RNE10, and DMRC scrapped all 386 vacancies by notice dated 18 June 2021. Nothing has been advertised since.

Why were the vacancies scrapped?

On a review of manpower requirements. The recruitment had already been kept in abeyance on administrative grounds in July 2020.

What happened to candidates who had already taken the exam?

They lost the result. The scrapping notice supersedes the vacancy numbers and notifies the outcome of the result accordingly, and the 2022 status statement records only "vacancies scrapped" against RNE10.

What does a Customer Relations Assistant do?

Interaction with commuters at Customer Care Centres, and the affairs of metro stations including operation control centres, on shift duty. Progression is towards Station Controller or Train Operator.

What are the working hours?

8 to 12 hours a day, depending on the ridership and footfall of the station or centre, including night shifts.

What qualification was required?

A three or four year graduation in any discipline, plus a computer application certificate of at least six weeks. No work experience.

What was the age limit?

18 to 28 as on 1 December 2019, with 5 years for SC and ST, 3 for OBC of the Central List, 5 for Jammu and Kashmir domicile between 01.01.1980 and 31.12.1989, and length of service plus 3 years up to 40 for ex-servicemen.

What was the exam pattern?

A CBT of two papers on the same day. Paper I, 120 questions in 1.5 hours, bilingual, on General Awareness, Reasoning and Quantitative Aptitude. Paper II, 60 questions in 45 minutes, General English. One third of a mark off per wrong answer in both.

Do I have to pass both papers?

Yes, separately. The call to the next stage then goes on the combined merit of the two, category wise.

What is the psycho test?

A third stage, qualifying only, adding nothing to merit. It is there because the grade progresses towards Station Controller and Train Operator.

What is the medical standard, and does Lasik bar me?

Aye-One (A-1) under the Indian Railway Medical Manual, requiring naked vision of 6/6. Lasik surgery bars the post: the advertisement names the posts still open after Lasik and CRA is not one of them.

Is there PwBD reservation on this post?

No. In 2019 it was given only for Accounts Assistant, Office Assistant and Stenographer.

What was the pay?

An IDA scale of ₹35,000 to ₹1,10,000, with Industrial DA, perks, HRA or lease accommodation, medical benefit, EPF, gratuity and insurance.

Is there a bond?

Yes. ₹1,50,000 plus GST as surety and ₹20,000 plus GST as cost of training, securing three years of service, with 90 days notice before resigning and two years probation.

What was the application fee?

₹500 for UR, EWS and OBC including ex-servicemen, ₹250 for SC, ST, PwBD and women, plus transaction charges. Non-refundable, and payable separately for each post.

Is there a published cut-off?

No. No panel was formed, so no last-candidate score exists, and DMRC does not publish qualifying marks in advance.

Where should I watch for a fresh notice?

delhimetrorail.com, Careers. No other agency or website is authorised to publish DMRC advertisements or issue its admit cards.