Skip to content

NABARD Grade A (Assistant Manager)

NABARD Grade A recruits Assistant Managers for the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development. The 2025 advertisement (No. 05/Grade A/2025-26) fills 91 posts across three services: Rural Development Banking Service (RDBS — a General discipline plus thirteen specialised ones), Legal Service, and Protocol & Security Service. Economic and social issues and agriculture and rural development (ESI and ARD) are the core of the RDBS Generalist paper.

At a glance
Conducted by National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development
Cycle Advertisement No. 05/Grade A/2025-26 — AM (RDBS / Legal / Protocol & Security)
Vacancies 91 total: 85 AM (RDBS) across 14 disciplines · 2 AM (Legal) · 4 AM (Protocol & Security); 7 of the RDBS posts are reserved for PwBD candidates
Applications Online only on nabard.org, 08–30 November 2025
Stages RDBS/Legal: Phase I (Preliminary, qualifying) → Phase II (Mains) → Phase III (Psychometric Test, mandatory) → Interview. Protocol & Security: online examination → Psychometric Test → Interview
Dates Phase I 20 December 2025 · Phase II (Mains) 25 January 2026 (RDBS/Legal) · Phase III Psychometric Test, dates announced later on the website
Age (as on 01.11.2025) RDBS/Legal 21–30 years (born 02.11.1995–01.11.2004); Protocol & Security 25–40 years, no relaxation. Upper-limit relaxation: OBC +3, SC/ST +5, PwBD +10 (Gen) / +13 (OBC) / +15 (SC/ST)
Qualification (RDBS General) Bachelor's degree in any subject with 60% aggregate (SC/ST/PwBD 55%) OR a postgraduate degree / MBA / PGDM with 55% (SC/ST/PwBD 50%) OR CA/CS/CMA/ICWA OR PhD. Every specialised discipline has its own qualifying degree (see the notification)
Application fee ₹150 (SC/ST/PwBD, intimation charges only) · ₹850 (all others), both exclusive of GST
Final merit RDBS/Legal: Phase II (Mains) + interview (50 marks); Protocol & Security: its online examination + interview. Phase I only shortlists for the Mains

Official sources

Exam pattern

Phase I (Preliminary) — online objective, 200 questions, 200 marks, 120 minutes (composite time for all tests together), bilingual in Hindi and English except the English test. It has eight tests. The first five are the qualifying tests — you must clear each one, but they do not decide the Mains call; the last three are the merit section, and shortlisting for the Mains is based on the merit-section marks alone.

Test Questions Marks Section
Test of Reasoning 20 20 Qualifying
English Language 30 30 Qualifying
Computer Knowledge 20 20 Qualifying
Quantitative Aptitude 20 20 Qualifying
Decision Making 10 10 Qualifying
General Awareness 20 20 Merit
Economic & Social Issues (focus on Rural India) 40 40 Merit
Agriculture & Rural Development (emphasis on Rural India) 40 40 Merit
Total 200 200 120 minutes

Phase II (Mains) — online. Two papers, common to every discipline in structure:

Paper Type Questions Marks Time
Paper I — General English Descriptive, typed 3 100 90 minutes
Paper II — ESI & ARD (RDBS General) or the stream-specific subject Objective 30 50 30 minutes
Paper II — same paper Descriptive, attempt 4 of 6 6 50 90 minutes

For the RDBS General discipline, Paper II is Economic & Social Issues and Agriculture & Rural Development; for the specialised disciplines and for Legal it is that discipline's own paper, with the same 50 + 50 split. Descriptive answers are typed on a keyboard, in English or Hindi (Remington/Inscript keyboards). The specialised-discipline and Legal Paper II syllabus is uploaded separately on the website.

Phase III — Psychometric Test (mandatory): multiple-choice, 90 minutes. Skipping it makes you ineligible for the interview.

Negative marking: one fourth (1/4) of the marks assigned to a question is deducted for each wrong answer, in both Phase I and Phase II. A blank answer carries no penalty.

Shortlisting and merit: cut-offs are applied in two stages — on the individual tests and on the total. The calling ratio to qualify for the Mains is a maximum of 1:25 and for the interview a maximum of 1:3 (the bank may reduce it). Scores across sessions are equated, and test-wise and total scores are reported to two decimal places. Final selection and ranking is on the Mains and interview taken together for RDBS/Legal, and on the online examination and interview together for Protocol & Security.

Syllabus

The notification calls its syllabus indicative, not exhaustive, and warns that questions can cover current developments and Acts even when a topic is not listed.

Phase I: Reasoning, English Language, Computer Knowledge, Quantitative Aptitude, Decision Making, General Awareness, Economic & Social Issues, and Agriculture & Rural Development.

Phase II Paper I (English, all disciplines): essay, précis writing, comprehension, and business/office correspondence — a test of writing, expression and understanding of the topic.

Phase II Paper II — ESI & ARD (RDBS General): - Economic & Social Issues: structure and reforms of the Indian economy; globalisation and privatisation; inflation and its impact; poverty alleviation and employment-generation programmes; population; agriculture and food security; rural credit and banking; industrial and labour policy; international funding institutions, the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO; social structure and social justice for SC/ST and other backward classes; education, health and environment; and current economic and social issues. - Agriculture & Rural Development: agronomy and cropping systems; soil and water conservation; irrigation management; farm and agri engineering; plantation and horticulture; animal husbandry and poultry; fisheries; forestry; agricultural extension and Krishi Vigyan Kendras; ecology and climate change; agricultural finance and marketing; and rural development — the rural economy, rural labour, handicrafts, Panchayati Raj, and programmes such as MGNREGA, NRLM (Aajeevika), rural drinking water, Swachh Bharat, rural housing and PURA.

The full illustrative syllabus is in the notification itself.

How to prepare (free, in order)

  1. ESI and ARD decide the RDBS General result. They are the entire merit section of Phase I and Paper II of the Mains. Prepare them from official sources — the Economic Survey, the Union Budget and the Ministry of Agriculture.
  2. Clear every Phase I qualifying test. Reasoning, English, Computer Knowledge, Quantitative Aptitude and Decision Making must each be cleared, even though only the merit section counts for the Mains call.
  3. Practise typed descriptive writing. Both Phase II papers are typed on a keyboard; Paper I is 100 marks of English descriptive writing and Paper II has a 50-mark descriptive part (attempt 4 of 6 questions).
  4. Write ESI/ARD answers weekly against the clock — the descriptive part is where most candidates lose marks.
  5. Attempt the Psychometric Test. It is mandatory and skipping it disqualifies you from the interview.

Free resources