NABARD Grade A Syllabus, Exam Pattern, Eligibility

Phase 1: 200 marks, 120 minutes, objective

Half the paper (100 marks) only has to be passed. Shortlisting for Phase 2 uses the other 100: General Awareness, ESI and ARD. 0.25 is deducted for a wrong answer.

Phase 2: 200 marks

Both papers are on computer and descriptive answers are typed. Paper II's descriptive half can be answered in English or Hindi.

Psychometric test and interview

• Psychometric test: after Phase 2, qualifying only.
• Interview: 50 marks.

Economic & Social Issues

Nature of the Indian economy, structural and institutional features, economic underdevelopment, opening up of the economy, globalisation, privatisation. Inflation: trends, causes, consequences and remedies. Poverty alleviation and employment generation, rural and urban. Population trends, migration and urbanisation. Social structure in India: multiculturalism, demographic trends, gender issues, social justice, positive discrimination, social movements, the Indian political system, human development. Education: enrolment, dropout and literacy; social sector spending; and the Sustainable Development Goals.

Agriculture & Rural Development

Agriculture: definition and scope, Indian agriculture and its resources, soil and water conservation, water resources and irrigation, farm and agricultural engineering, plantation and horticulture, animal husbandry, fisheries, forestry, agricultural extension, ecology and climate change, present scenario of Indian agriculture and allied activities. Rural development: concept and its significance, rural development policies and programmes, rural credit and the role of NABARD, cooperatives, self-help groups and micro-finance, Panchayati Raj institutions, rural infrastructure, MSMEs, rural employment schemes, and the current state of the rural economy.

General Awareness

Current affairs leaning towards agriculture, rural development, banking and the economy; government schemes; NABARD's own role, functions and refinance operations; the Reserve Bank of India and monetary policy; budget and Economic Survey.

General English (Phase 2, descriptive)

Essay, precis writing and reading comprehension. Typed answers.

The qualifying sections

Reasoning: puzzles and seating arrangement, syllogism, inequality, coding-decoding, blood relations, direction sense, data sufficiency. Quantitative Aptitude: data interpretation, number series, simplification, and standard arithmetic. English Language: reading comprehension, cloze test, error spotting, vocabulary. Computer Knowledge: fundamentals, hardware and software, operating systems, MS Office, internet, networking and security. Decision Making: situational judgement questions on workplace and administrative scenarios.

Educational qualification (RDBS: General)

A bachelor's degree with a minimum of 60% marks (50% for SC, ST and PwBD), or a post-graduate degree or equivalent with the prescribed marks. Most bank recruitment asks only for a pass, so check this first.

Specialist disciplines (Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, Fisheries, Forestry, Environmental Engineering, Land Development, Soil Science, Water Resources, Computer & Information Technology, Finance, Company Secretary, Chartered Accountant, Development Studies, Economics, Human Resource Management, Mass Communication, Statistics and others) each have their own requirement in the advertisement. Legal, Protocol & Security and other streams are notified separately.

Age

Broadly 21 to 30 years, with relaxation of 3 years for OBC, 5 for SC and ST, 10 for PwBD, and more for candidates with the experience the advertisement sets out.

1. Phase 1: objective, 200 marks. Only General Awareness, ESI and ARD (100 marks) count for shortlisting; the other five sections just have to be passed.
2. Phase 2: 200 marks, a descriptive English paper and an ESI & ARD paper that's half objective, half descriptive.
3. Psychometric test: qualifying, no marks.
4. Interview: 50 marks.

Final selection = Phase 2 + interview. Nothing from Phase 1 carries forward.

NABARD sets its own pay. Dearness allowance, house rent allowance or Bank accommodation, and NABARD's own allowances come on top; as at the Reserve Bank, allowances make up most of the gross.

Expect to be posted anywhere in the country, with rural field work as a normal part of the job.

Apply through the link on NABARD Careers. Grade A is recruited in modest numbers and not every year, so often nothing is open.

The degree bar is 60% for General, EWS and OBC, and 50% for SC, ST and PwBD.

Grade A is advertised by discipline: General, Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, Fisheries, Forestry, Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering, Computer and Information Technology, Finance, Company Secretary, Human Resource Management, Mass Communication and Statistics among them, depending on the cycle. Each has its own qualification, and the discipline decides the specialist part of your Phase 2 paper.

One employer: the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, the apex development finance institution for agriculture and rural India, set up under the NABARD Act 1981 and based in Mumbai.

It refinances and supervises rural lenders, cooperative and regional rural banks among them, funds rural infrastructure, and backs the self-help group and microfinance movement. A Grade A officer does credit planning, supervision, project appraisal and policy, not counter banking.

It works through a head office in Mumbai, regional offices in every state, training establishments, and District Development Managers at district level.

Phase 1 is held online at centres across India, chosen when you apply. Phase 2 runs at far fewer centres. The interview is at NABARD's regional offices or its Mumbai head office, as the Bank decides.

Centre change requests aren't accepted, and the Bank can allot a different centre.

NABARD has no fixed calendar for Grade A and doesn't recruit every year. The advertisement, application window, phase dates and results all appear on NABARD Careers, and vacancies are split by discipline each cycle.

Call letters for Phase 1, Phase 2 and the interview are downloaded separately through the recruitment link on nabard.org. Nothing comes by post.

• The printed call letter.
• A photo ID in original of the type the call letter names, plus a photocopy.
• The photograph used in the application.

Phase 1's 200 marks decide who sits Phase 2 and then count for nothing. The interview shortlist is on Phase 2 alone, and the final list is Phase 2 plus the interview.

Results are posted per recruitment on NABARD Careers. NABARD publishes less afterwards than UPSC does, so keep your own call letters and scorecards while they're available.

NABARD sets sectional and aggregate cut-offs for Phase 1, and the Phase 2 cut-off for interview, after each stage. None are in the notification.

Grade A is recruited discipline by discipline, often with only a handful of posts outside General, so any cut-off is specific to one discipline and one cycle. Results are on NABARD Careers.

1. Build everything around ESI and ARD. They're 80 of the 100 shortlisting marks in Phase 1 and the whole of Phase 2 Paper II.
2. Don't over-prepare the aptitude half. Those 100 marks only need to be passed.
3. Read the source texts: the Economic Survey, NABARD's own annual report and publications, and the agriculture and rural chapters of the Union Budget. A descriptive answer that cites real programme names and figures reads very differently.
4. Practise typed descriptive answers to time. 150 of Phase 2's 200 marks are descriptive.
5. Know NABARD itself: refinance, RIDF, its schemes, and its links with Regional Rural Banks and cooperatives. It comes up in General Awareness and at interview.

No previous year papers are available. NABARD doesn't publish them.

The notification on NABARD Careers carries the scheme, syllabus outline and discipline-wise qualifications for each cycle.

NABARD official website: nabard.org

Careers and current vacancies: NABARD careers

NABARD annual reports (core ARD and General Awareness reading): annual reports

Is Phase 1 qualifying?

Yes, it doesn't enter the final merit. Within it, only General Awareness, ESI and ARD (100 marks) count for shortlisting; the other five sections just have to be passed.

What decides the final result?

Phase 2 (200 marks) plus the interview (50).

Is Phase 2 descriptive?

Mostly: 150 of 200 marks. Answers are typed.

Is the psychometric test scored?

No. It's qualifying.

What percentage do I need in my degree?

60%, or 50% for SC, ST and PwBD.

Do I need an agriculture background?

Not for RDBS General, which takes any degree. But the syllabus is heavily agricultural, so you'll have more to learn without one.