PA/SA LDCE Cut-Off: Qualifying Marks and What It Took to Be Selected

None of the result memos we read prints a “cut-off” for the PA/SA LDCE. What each of them publishes is a result memo with the qualifying marks, the vacancies and the list of selected candidates in merit order. From those three things you can work out the two numbers that matter: the qualifying mark, a percentage that is the same everywhere (the raw figure moves only if questions are deleted), and the last-selected mark, which varies by circle and year because it depends on how many posts there were and how well that circle’s candidates did.

This guide puts both side by side. The qualifying marks come straight from the 2026 result memos of Tamil Nadu (27.08.2026), Uttar Pradesh (17.09.2026) and Karnataka (23.09.2026) and the DEST letter of 19.12.2022. The last-selected marks are our reading of the Andhra Pradesh and Odisha 2025 result lists, the two most recent complete lists we could read. We print no names or roll numbers.

The percentages are the same everywhere, but in 2026 the circles did not delete the same number of Paper-I questions, so the paper maximum and the raw qualifying mark were different from circle to circle. Read your own circle’s result memo; do not borrow another circle’s figure.

Two details in the first table catch people out. First, when questions are deleted the percentage is applied to the reduced maximum, so in Tamil Nadu’s 2026 exam the UR floor was 39.2, not 40. Second, OBC and EWS candidates get no lower mark in this exam. The Tamil Nadu memo states it in so many words: the LDCE “is a promotional examination” and there is no reservation in promotion for OBC and EWS, so the UR mark applies to them. Odisha and Andhra Pradesh applied the same rule in 2025. That rule is about the LDCE, which is a promotion. The notifications still reprint the 2019 table with OBC at 37%, and for the GDS competitive exam — which the rules treat as direct recruitment — that printed 37% is the figure the notification gives; none of the result memos we read states a separate GDS mark.

The spread is the single most useful fact on this page. In 2025 a UR candidate with 65 was comfortably selected in Odisha and nowhere near selection in Andhra Pradesh. Andhra Pradesh had 99 posts and Odisha 50, so more posts did not mean an easier list — the size and strength of each circle’s pool of eligible MTS, Postmen and Mail Guards decided it. The result memos we read do not print how many candidates appeared, so the pool size cannot be read from the documents.

Andhra Pradesh’s 2025 memo lists candidates who were “in the zone of consideration” but not selected because others had the same mark. Three UR candidates on 76, three SC candidates on 70 and one ST candidate on 65 missed out that way. The memo says the inter-se order of equal marks was decided under the Directorate’s letter No. 04-08/2009-SPN-I dated 11.12.2020, and Tamil Nadu cites the same letter in 2026. DEST marks, which appear in the list beside each name, are not what breaks a tie: the DEST is qualifying only.

It happened again in 2026. Andhra Pradesh’s supplementary result of 29.09.2026, which filled posts that candidates selected on 25.08.2026 had declined, lists six UR candidates on 74 and one SC candidate on 68 who were in the zone of consideration but not selected: candidates on equal marks were ordered by seniority and the posts ran out before their turn. So in Andhra Pradesh in 2026 a UR mark of 74 out of 100 was not enough for the last posts, even after the declined posts were refilled. The memo adds that no LGO post was left for Category B or GDS candidates in 2026 apart from one PwBD post carried to 2027.

That is what a supplementary result is. North East Circle issued one on 28.09.2026 to fill three UR posts left when three selected candidates declined promotion after its first result of 14.08.2026, and Andhra Pradesh issued one on 29.09.2026. If you were just below the line in the first list, watch for your circle’s supplementary list in the weeks after it.

The Andhra Pradesh 2025 memo also lists three candidates who were within the merit zone but could not be allotted a post because the cadres or divisions they had opted for were full when their turn came. Their marks were high.

An 80 out of 100 was among the highest marks in the whole circle that year (the top mark was 81), and it still produced no post because the candidate listed too few divisions. The preference form is handed over at the DEST in most circles. If you would accept a post in any division, say so on the form; if you would not, understand that a narrow list is a real risk and not a formality. Tamil Nadu’s 2026 memo adds that no request to change the allotted division will be entertained afterwards.

Karnataka and Gujarat both say they drew their results under a Directorate letter of 22.09.2026 on dies-non, EOL, unauthorised absence and the senior-junior clause. What that letter says about eligibility is in the eligibility guide in this series.

Tamil Nadu declared its 2026 result on 27.08.2026, eleven days after its DEST of 16.08.2026. It had 357 posts across the three cadres, the largest of the 2026 circle lists we could read, and it applied the qualifying marks on a maximum of 98 because two questions were deleted under the Directorate’s standard procedure. The memo does not print a last-selected mark, and the merit list is a scanned image, so we have not derived one.

Two sentences in the memo show how posts move when the LDCE cannot fill them. The ST posts were “carried forward to CE and filled up” — that is, passed to the competitive exam for Gramin Dak Sevaks held on the same paper — and there was no eligible candidate for the PwBD (others) post under either exam. Selected GDS candidates receive an order of appointment, not promotion, because a GDS entering the cadre is treated as a direct recruit.

Odisha’s 2025 list is small enough to read in full. Of the 50 selected, 49 were Category A officials and one was a Category B official — a visually handicapped UR candidate with 48, selected in the UR category against the horizontal VH slot and exempt from the DEST. Most of the selected were Postmen; the list also has MTS, Mail Guards, Mail Overseers and a Head Postman. The lowest DEST score among those selected was 18.56, from an SC candidate, whose floor was 15.

Our reading of two data points, not a forecast: a UR candidate who wants to be safe in most circles should aim above the Andhra Pradesh 2025 figure of 76, which in a 100-question paper means about 76 right answers with nothing left blank on guesswork. That is a demanding target. Our suggestion is to plan on taking most of the 40 reasoning and arithmetic marks, because those are the blocks where practice converts most directly into marks; the result lists do not print section-wise scores, so this is advice, not a finding. In a smaller circle, or one like Odisha in 2025, a mark in the low 60s has been enough. Check your own circle’s last result memo on the India Post circle website before you set a number.