RRB NTPC Graduate 2026 (CEN 06/2026): 3,548 Vacancies, Dates, Exam Pattern and CBT Score Calculation

The Railway Recruitment Boards have opened applications for the graduate-level NTPC recruitment under CEN 06/2026. The notification lists 3,548 provisional vacancies across four posts. Applications run from 8 October to 6 November 2026, and the exam dates have not been announced. This guide pulls the key numbers together and shows, step by step, how a Stage 1 CBT score is calculated under the 1/3 negative marking rule.

Posts, Pay Levels and Vacancies

One post dominates this recruitment: Goods Train Manager accounts for about 77.5% of all vacancies. Candidates who are mainly interested in clerical or accounts roles should therefore note that those posts together make up only 671 of the 3,548 seats.

Category-wise and PwBD vacancies

Category-wise, the notification lists UR 1,517, SC 553, ST 300, OBC-NCL 873 and EWS 305 (these add up to 3,548). Ex-servicemen vacancies (351) are included within these totals, not added on top. PwBD vacancies are listed as visual impairment 25, locomotor disability 18, hearing impairment 16, multiple disabilities 6 and none for other disabilities. The notification says all numbers are provisional and may increase, decrease or become nil.

Important Dates

Eligibility Conditions

• Qualification: a degree from a recognised university or equivalent, held on or before 6 November 2026. Candidates who are still awaiting their final result are not eligible.
• Age: 18 to 33 years as on 1 January 2027. By date of birth this means UR/EWS candidates born between 2 January 1994 and 1 January 2009, OBC-NCL from 2 January 1991 and SC/ST from 2 January 1989.
• Relaxations: SC/ST 5 years, OBC-NCL 3 years, and for PwBD 10 years (UR/EWS), 13 years (OBC-NCL) and 15 years (SC/ST). Relaxations are not cumulative, and SC/ST/OBC-NCL candidates who apply against unreserved vacancies get no relaxation.

Application fee

General candidates pay ₹500, of which ₹400 is refunded (after bank charges) once they appear in the Stage 1 CBT. SC, ST, ex-servicemen, PwBD, women, transgender, minority and EBC candidates pay ₹250, which is refunded in full after bank charges on appearing. The modification fee of ₹250 is not refundable.

Selection Process and Exam Pattern

Selection has three steps: a Stage 1 CBT that acts as a common screening test, a Stage 2 CBT, and document verification with a medical examination. From Stage 1, candidates are shortlisted for Stage 2 at 15 times the community-wise vacancies of the RRB they chose, using normalised marks. Document verification then happens at a 1:1 ratio with vacancies, based on Stage 2 merit.

Minimum qualifying marks are UR 40%, EWS 40%, OBC-NCL 30%, SC 30% and ST 25%. If candidates tie, the older candidate ranks higher, and a further tie is settled alphabetically by given name.

Worked Example: Calculating a Stage 1 CBT Raw Score

Because every question carries one mark and each wrong answer costs one-third of a mark, the formula is simple:

Take a candidate who attempts 83 of the 100 questions, with the section-wise split below:

Every set of three wrong answers cancels one correct answer, so this candidate loses 7 marks to 21 wrong answers and finishes on 55.00. That clears the 40-mark benchmark for UR candidates, but the shortlist is built from normalised marks within the chosen RRB, so a raw score alone does not guarantee a place.

Three attempt styles compared

Candidate B attempts every question and scores 60.00. Candidate A leaves 17 unattempted and scores 55.00, while Candidate C attempts only 60 questions with high accuracy and scores 53.33. The lesson is that a blind guess among four options has an expected value of exactly zero (0.25 − 0.75 ÷ 3 = 0), so a guess only pays off once you can eliminate at least one option.

What the Brief Notification Does Not Say Yet

Preparation Priorities

General Awareness is 40% of the Stage 1 paper and 42% of Stage 2 (50 of 120 questions), so it deserves steady daily revision of current affairs, polity, geography and basic science. Mathematics and reasoning together are 60 questions in Stage 1, which is where speed matters: with 90 minutes for 100 questions you have an average of about 54 seconds per question, so reserve your harder arithmetic and puzzle sets for a second pass.

Related: RRB NTPC calculatorNTPC normalization guideNegative marking mathsExam deadlines calendar

About the author. Thaseen Fathima is a B.Tech CSE (AI) student at Vignan Institute of Engineering and Technology, Visakhapatnam, who builds examination calculators and writes the guides behind them.