BTSC Dresser Syllabus, Exam Pattern, Eligibility

There's no sectional timing: two hours for all hundred questions. Because the test runs in several shifts, scores are normalised first, and the normalised percentage is then multiplied by 0.75 to give the written component of the merit list.

The Commission's syllabus for Dresser is one page, headed "Certificate Course in Dresser", with three subject heads and eleven numbered items. Here it is in full.

Life Science, that is Anatomy and Physiology

1. Scope of anatomy and physiology, and the definitions of the terms used in anatomy.
2. The elementary tissues of the body: epithelial, muscular, connective and nervous tissue.
3. The structure and function of the skeleton, the classification of joints and their function, and joint disorders.
4. The blood: composition, blood pressure and its recording, blood groups and the coagulation of blood, with brief information on disorders of the blood.

Dressing, Medical Instruments, Chemical Solution and Sterilisation

1. Surgical instruments and surgical procedures; sterilisation and disinfection and the different methods of each; protection of patients in surgery; preparation of patients for surgery.

Pharmacology

1. General pharmacology and the general action of drugs.
2. Drug toxicity.
3. Methods of administration.
4. Chemotherapeutic agents, antibiotics and sulpha drugs.
5. Vitamins.
6. The action of sera and vaccines.

That's all of it. For comparison, the Pharmacist syllabus is the Pharmacy Council of India's 78-page curriculum. No marks split between the three heads is published.

Open to citizens of India. Reservation is only for permanent residents of Bihar, judged on the permanent address you give in the online form.

Qualification

• Matriculation or an equivalent, passed; and
• a Certificate in Medical Dresser (C.M.D.) from an institution recognised by the Union Government, the Government of Bihar or another state government, already in hand.

The certificate is what candidates turned out not to have in the last round.

The 2005 relaxation

Four days after applications closed, Notice No. 1184 of 12 April 2025, issued on the Health Department's advice, dropped the requirement to upload a marks certificate for candidates who trained as a Dresser before 2005. The application window reopened from 12 to 15 April 2025 so they could apply.

Age

The minimum is 18, and both limits are counted on 1 August 2024. Date of birth is taken from the matriculation certificate and nothing else.

You can claim only one of three relaxations: ten years for persons with disabilities, five for Bihar government servants with three years of continuous regular service, or a period equal to your prior contract service in the same post, part-years included.

Reservation

Six reserved categories: Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe, Extremely Backward Class, Backward Class, Economically Weaker Section and Women of Backward Classes. On top of these sit 35 per cent horizontal reservation for women, subject to vacancies, and 2 per cent for grandchildren of freedom fighters holding a central pension, claimed on a District Magistrate's certificate in the prescribed format. Transgender candidates get the Backward Class benefits.

• BC and EBC candidates need a non-creamy-layer certificate issued for the Government of Bihar; a caste certificate alone isn't enough.
• For women, that certificate must be in the father's name and address.
• The category can't be changed after registration, and a benefit not claimed in its column of the form isn't granted later.

No interview. The written test and prior contract service add up to a single hundred-mark merit list.

1. Computer based test, 100 questions in two hours; the percentage is multiplied by 0.75.
2. Minimum qualifying marks by category. Below your minimum, you're out.
3. Experience marks, added only if you've qualified the written test.
4. Category-wise merit list on the combined hundred marks.
5. Document verification.

Experience marks

Five marks for each year of contract service as a Dresser, up to 25, in a state government hospital or institution in Bihar, or in a non-private hospital under the central government, a panchayati raj body or an urban local body. A part-year counts as working days × 5 ÷ 365.

The certificate must be signed by the district Civil Surgeon, or by the Principal of a medical college, the Superintendent of a medical college and hospital, the Director of a super-speciality hospital, or the head of the institution. It must use the Appendix-1 format attached to the advertisement. Any other format earns neither the marks nor the age relaxation, and neither does a claim left out of the form's own column.

Level 2 is the lowest of the Commission's 2025 Health Department posts. Laboratory Technician, X-Ray Technician, Operation Theatre Assistant and Pharmacist are all Level 5 with a grade pay of ₹2,800, and the nursing teaching cadre is Level 8. Allowances follow the state rules for Level 2 and aren't listed in the advertisement.

Apply online only, on btsc.bihar.gov.in. The fee is paid online by debit card, credit card, internet banking or UPI, plus the bank's charge.

If you pay a concessional fee and can't later produce the certificate behind it, your candidature is cancelled.

What the form needs

• the matriculation certificate, which is both your school qualification and proof of date of birth;
• the Certificate in Medical Dresser with its marksheet, unless the pre-2005 relaxation applies;
• the caste, non-creamy-layer or EWS certificate as applicable;
• the permanent residence certificate, without which no reservation is given;
• the Appendix-1 experience certificate, if you claim experience marks.

Every claim goes in its own column and can't be added later. Since the last round failed on eligibility, these fields matter more than the paper.

One requisitioning body: the Health Department, Government of Bihar, Patna, for its hospitals and institutions across the state.

Within the total, 134 posts are for persons with disabilities: 34 for blindness and low vision, 34 for deafness and hard of hearing, 33 for locomotor disability (including cerebral palsy, leprosy cured, dwarfism, acid attack victims and muscular dystrophy), and 33 for autism, intellectual disability, specific learning disability and mental illness or multiple disability. Another 67 are for grandchildren of freedom fighters.

Only seven of the 134 were filled (one blindness and low vision, six locomotor), and none of the 67 freedom-fighter posts. The vacancy count can rise or fall if the department revises its requisition before the last date of application.

The test runs in more than one shift. Your centre and shift are on the admit card, published on btsc.bihar.gov.in. The advertisement fixes no centres in advance and promises nothing about your home district.

Watch the site's notices: two more were issued on this advertisement in July and August 2026, alongside the result. Where you sit the exam has no bearing on where the Health Department posts you.

The Commission has no annual calendar; it advertises a post when the department's requisition arrives. The last round ran like this:

Advertisement to result took seventeen months. The other Health Department posts ran alongside: Laboratory Technician, Operation Theatre Assistant, ECG Technician and X-Ray Technician opened on 4 March 2025, Pharmacist on 11 March, Staff Nurse in April and Tutor (Nursing) in July.

Download the admit card from Admit Card / Call Letter on the Commission's site. No date is fixed in the advertisement. The card also tells you your shift, which is what normalisation is applied to.

After the exam, scores appear on the Score Card page, and objections to the answer key or result go through the Objection Portal within the window the Commission announces.

The result for Advertisement No. 21/2025 is Notice No. 2578 of 14 August 2026. It lists, by category, the vacancies, the 35 per cent women's share, the number selected and the cut-off. The unreserved row says "every eligible candidate selected"; every reserved row says "no eligible candidate available".

Carried forward to a later recruitment year:

• 127 of the 134 disability posts: 33 blindness and low vision, all 34 deafness and hard of hearing, 27 locomotor, and all 33 autism, intellectual disability, specific learning disability and mental illness posts.
• 997 of the 1,129 women's posts, under two General Administration Department letters of 9 July 2025: 334 of the unreserved 466, and every women's vacancy in the reserved categories (117, 186, 12, 210 and 138).

There was no closing cut-off in the last round. The only cut-off that applied was the qualifying minimum in the written test, which is the same across Bihar (set by state resolutions of 2007 and 2021):

In the unreserved category every eligible candidate was taken and 536 posts still went unfilled. In the six reserved categories nobody eligible was found. Of the 796 selected, 132 were women of Bihar, all on unreserved posts, and 664 were men or women from other states.

The sibling posts did have cut-offs

Sort out eligibility first

In the last round nobody in a reserved category lost out on marks; nobody eligible applied. You need the Certificate in Medical Dresser from a recognised institution, a Bihar permanent residence certificate if you're claiming reservation, and the right category ticked in the form before registration closes.

Trained before 2005? Look for a relaxation notice

Notice No. 1184 let pre-2005 trainees apply without a marks certificate and reopened the window for four days. Check the notices for an equivalent in your cycle.

Learn all eleven syllabus items

Anatomy and physiology up to tissues, joints and blood; sterilisation, disinfection and preparing a patient for surgery; and pharmacology up to antibiotics, vitamins, sera and vaccines. There's no marks split, so cover everything.

Get your experience certificate ready

Five marks a year of contract service as a Dresser, up to 25. Have the Appendix-1 certificate signed by the Civil Surgeon or the right head of institution before you apply, and fill in the claim in its own column.

Answer every question

A wrong answer costs 0.25 and there's no sectional timing, so leave nothing blank.

No previous year papers or model papers are available for this post. The Bihar Technical Service Commission doesn't publish them, so anything sold as a "BTSC Dresser previous paper" isn't official.

The closest official guides are the one-page syllabus and the Advertisement No. 21/2025 PDF, both free on btsc.bihar.gov.in.

• Bihar Technical Service Commission
• Recruitments, with every advertisement and its dates
• Syllabus for each post
• Important notices, including corrigenda and results
• Admit card and call letter
• Score card
• Result
• Objection portal

What qualification do I need?

Matriculation or equivalent, plus a Certificate in Medical Dresser from an institution recognised by the Union Government, the Government of Bihar or another state government.

Was there a cut-off in the last cycle?

No. Of 3,326 posts, 796 were filled, all unreserved. The result says "every eligible candidate selected" for unreserved and "no eligible candidate available" for all six reserved categories.

Is there an interview?

No. A computer based test worth 75 marks, experience worth up to 25, then document verification.

What is the pay?

Pay Level 2, grade pay ₹1,900 (unrevised scale ₹5,200 to ₹20,200).

Is there negative marking?

Yes, a quarter mark off for each wrong answer.

Why is my merit score lower than my test percentage?

The test percentage is multiplied by 0.75. Fifty per cent in the paper becomes 37.5 marks; the other 25 are for contract service as a Dresser.

I live outside Bihar. Can I apply?

Yes. You get no reservation and pay ₹600 whatever your category or sex. In the last round every selection was on an unreserved post anyway.