Puducherry Combined Higher Secondary Level (CHSL) Examination 2026

Basic eligibility paths

• ✓Only Indian citizens who are natives or residents of the Union Territory of Puducherry may apply.
• ✓Only applications successfully filed through the Puducherry online recruitment portal are accepted; incomplete applications, or applications with partial, wrong or junk information, are summarily rejected, and candidature is provisional at every stage.
• ✓Applicants must apply separately for each post and furnish the post codes online; a candidate who applies for more than one post covered by the common examination is later called to state a preference, and that option is final and cannot be changed later.
• ✓Reservation and inter-se exchange for Persons with Benchmark Disability follow DoPT O.M. No.35035/02/2017-Estt(Res) dated 15.01.2018.
• ✓Provisionally short-listed candidates are called for verification of original age, education, nativity or residence and community certificates; those who fail to appear on the scheduled date, or cannot produce the required certificates, have their candidature cancelled, while candidates producing old certificates are included provisionally subject to producing the required certificates within fifteen days.

Relaxations & certificates

• SC/ST, OBC-NCL, PwBD and ex-servicemen relaxations follow the applicable notification.
• Always check the certificate format and cut-off date in the official notice.

Selection stages

1. 1Online application on the Puducherry recruitment portal
2. 2Written competitive examination — Paper-I and Paper-II, conducted in all four regions subject to adequate numbers applying from a region
3. 3Answer key publication and key challenge on the recruitment portal
4. 4Provisional short list of three times the notified vacancies
5. 5Certificate verification, and the computer typing speed test for Lower Division Clerk candidates who do not hold the Typewriting Lower Grade certificate
6. 6Final provisional select list, with a wait list valid for one year from the declaration of the result

Syllabus snapshot

• The scheme of examination and the indicative syllabus are in Annexure-I of Advertisement No.02/CHSL/PEA/2026; the Controller of Examinations may vary or revise the indicative syllabus, number of questions, number of papers, marks, time allowed and weightage at any time before the examination and will notify the change on the online recruitment portal.
• Negative marking is 0.25 for every wrong answer, and multiple answers are treated as a wrong answer.
• Weightage of marks: each paper carries equal weightage for the actual marks obtained, irrespective of the number of questions evaluated after the Key Challenge is finalised; there is no re-evaluation or re-checking of answer sheets or answer scripts.
• Minimum qualifying marks: 30% for UR, 25% for OBC/MBC/EWS and 20% for SC. A candidate must appear in both Paper-I and Paper-II to enter the merit list, subject to obtaining the minimum qualifying mark in each paper.
• Paper-I and Paper-II are bilingual — English with any one of Tamil, Telugu or Malayalam — and the preferred language must be indicated in the online application; questions on English language, grammar, comprehension or literature are not translated into any regional language.
• Answers are marked by shading the correct option with a black ball point pen on an OMR sheet; mutilation, multiple markings or stray marks may lead to rejection of the sheet or negative marking.
• Ties in the examination score are resolved first by date of birth, with the older candidate placed higher, and then by alphabetical order of names.