GDS to MTS Merit List: Office Preference, Joining and Why It Comes Last

Passing the GDS to MTS exam is half the story. Where you are posted, how fast, and what that posting lets you do next are decided by three things you settle on the application form and one number you earn in the exam hall. This guide covers them in order: the unified MTS cadre and the office preference it asks of you, the Paper-I merit rule, the selection procedure that runs MTS last, and what the joining and supplementary lists of 2025 and 2026 show about how long it takes.

Official: DoP letters of 05.04.2022, 29.09.2023 and 18.10.2023.

On 29.09.2023 the Department unified the MTS cadre. Before that, MTS in post offices and RMS divisions, in administrative offices, in the postal accounts offices and in the civil and electrical wing were in effect separate cadres. The modalities annexed to the letter make them one — but with limits that matter to a GDS choosing where to go.

The practical point is clause (h). Your first promotion as MTS fixes the ladder you climb afterwards. If you want the post-office route — Postman, then Postal or Sorting Assistant — a subordinate office is the natural start. If an accounts office appeals, its promotions run through the LDC post of the DAP and stay there. Your office preference on the GDS form does not itself lock the channel; the first promotion you take does. But because Rule 37 transfers between subordinate and administrative offices are barred, the office you join is where you will most likely sit that first LDCE.

Treat the preference list as part of your exam. A high rank with a short list can leave you unplaced when your listed offices fill before your turn; a long, honest list gets you a post. Put first the offices you genuinely want and would join within a week — the joining rule below is strict — and include units you might overlook. In West Bengal’s 2026 table, for example, all 24 posts in eight Kolkata offices and units, from the GPO to the accounts office, were exam-only. Our vacancies guide has the full list.

For MTS, the pattern letter of 05.04.2022 says selection is on performance in Paper-I only. Paper-I is 100 marks in 60 minutes, set in English, Hindi and the local language where Hindi is not local. The block-by-block question count is in our common exam pattern guide and the older GDS to MTS, Postman and Mail Guard syllabus page; we do not repeat it here. Qualifying marks for MTS are 40% for unreserved, 37% for OBC and EWS and 33% for SC, ST and PwBD. Among those who qualify, candidates are arranged in order of Paper-I marks and declared successful up to the number of vacancies in each category.

Two later changes simplify it further for an MTS-only candidate. The letter of 10.07.2024 removed the local-language paper for MTS, so there is no second paper to clear. And the data entry skill test applies to Postman and Mail Guard only. Ties are settled by the Directorate’s inter-se merit letter of 11.12.2020, which the Uttar Pradesh result cites.

The same exam fills three posts, and the Department fills them in a fixed order. The pattern letter of 05.04.2022 tells circles to ensure that the Postman and Mail Guard appointments from the common exam are completed before any candidate selected for MTS is appointed. The procedure of 18.10.2023 then sets six stages. Stages I to V deal with Postman and Mail Guard — first the MTS candidates promoted through the LDCE, then the GDS candidates. The Postman and Mail Guard cluster on this site covers those stages. Only then comes the one that concerns this exam:

The consequence for a GDS who opts for both Postman and MTS is our reading of that order: you are tried for Postman first, and if you are selected and join as Postman you leave the MTS list, which then moves up. That is one reason MTS lists are revised so often, and why a candidate just below the line on the first MTS list should not give up.

The Maharashtra case is the one to remember. Two years after its exam, the circle was still recommending GDS for MTS from the same merit list, part by part, as posts fell vacant through non-joining and as earlier selections were settled. Uttar Pradesh’s June 2026 list shows the other source of delay: candidates declared “provisional” at the main result — typically pending verification of eligibility — are added only once that is cleared. The UP memo also makes appointment of SC, ST, OBC and EWS candidates provisional subject to verification of caste or EWS status within one month.