Postman DEST: 600 Key Depressions in 15 Minutes, 75% to Qualify

After the written papers, Postman and Mail Guard candidates face one more step: the Data Entry Skill Test, Paper-IV. It is short — 15 minutes on a computer — and it is only qualifying, but it is the step where a good written rank can still be lost. It is also the number most often printed wrong. The Postman DEST is 600 key depressions, not 1,000; that figure belongs to the Postal Assistant / Sorting Assistant exam.

This guide traces the DEST from the 2022 pattern to the letter of 19.12.2022 that governs it now, sets out who is called and what they must score, lists the 2026 DEST dates we found by circle, and gives you a speed check for practice. The rest of the pattern is in our common exam pattern guide.

Official: DoP letter 17-08/2018-SPN-I dated 19.12.2022. The 18.75 is our arithmetic from 75% of 25.

The medium is English only, and the test is evaluated by the software, not by an examiner. Telangana’s DEST notice of 03.09.2026 states all of it in one paragraph: the medium of DEST will be English only, it will be held on computer for 15 minutes, data entry of 600 key impressions plus or minus 5%, and evaluation by the system.

Not everyone who clears the written papers sits the DEST. Candidates who have cleared Paper-I plus Paper-II combined and Paper-III separately are ranked, and three times the number of vacancies are called. The letter adds two refinements. If the vacancies are revised before the Paper-I and II results, the shortlist is three times the revised figure. A revision after the results is allowed only in exceptional circumstances, with the approval of the Director General of Postal Services. West Bengal’s 2026 notification applies the multiple to the total of Postman and Mail Guard vacancies together.

Shortlists can also change. North East Circle withdrew its first DEST shortlist of 22.08.2026 and replaced it on 17.09.2026 with a revised list — 22 MTS candidates for the LDCE and 147 GDS candidates — for a DEST held in seven batches on 24.09.2026. Uttar Pradesh published its DEST shortlist together with lists of candidates whose OMR sheets were rejected by the software for wrongly filled roll numbers, with the venue and schedule to follow.

The spread is the point. Across the circles we found, the DEST fell between seven and eleven weeks after the written exam (our arithmetic). A candidate who stops practising after 12 July has lost two months. Start typing practice before the written exam, not after the shortlist.

A key depression is one press of a key, and the space bar counts. Forty a minute is a gentle pace for anyone who types every day, and a hard one for someone who has only ever used a phone. The risk is not speed alone but corrections: every key you go back to fix costs time. Practise on English prose, on a real keyboard, with a 15-minute timer, and check both your speed and how often you correct.