SSC GD Constable PST and PET: Height, Chest, Race Time and Checker

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Height standards and relaxations

The notice gives one base standard and six relaxed standards. Scheduled Tribe candidates may use their ST certificate; every other relaxation needs a certificate in the proforma of Annexure IX from a District Magistrate, Sub-Division Magistrate or Tehsildar, produced at the PET/PST (para 12.5.4). If you fit more than one group, you can claim the lowest standard for which you can produce the certificate the notice requires; the notice does not say that relaxations are combined or added. Carry the Annexure IX certificate to the venue, because it is checked after the race and before measurement. The table is the notice's table.

Two readings people get wrong. First, the relaxation for "candidates hailing from the North Eastern States" (162.5 cm for men) is for domicile, not tribe; a Scheduled Tribe candidate of those states gets the lower 157.0 cm because the ST row for North Eastern States is separate. Second, the "Garhwalis, Kumaonis, Dogras, Marathas" group is by community, and the states Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh are by domicile; both get 165 cm for men and 155 cm for women.

Chest standards for men

Chest is measured for men only. For women, the notice says chest is not measured but "it will be ascertained that the chest is well-developed" (para 12.5.2.4). Weight, in the notice, is "proportionate to height and age as per medical standards" (para 12.5.3), and the ministry's memorandum of 9 March 2026 turns that into a measurable rule at the medical stage, described below.

The race: the PET is pass or fail

The Physical Efficiency Test is a timed race. It has no marks and no points toward merit; the only question is whether you finish inside the limit. The notice prints the limits in one table.

Note what the notice does not say. There is no separate race for any category or caste, no different time for OBC or ST candidates, no age-based time and no extra standard for ex-servicemen, who are exempt from the PET: they appear at the PST only for height, chest and weight to be recorded, and must still pass the medical (para 12.3). The race differs by gender and by region only, and the only region named is Ladakh.

The order on the day and what you can appeal

Paragraph 12.2 says shortlisted candidates go through biometric verification and then PET and PST; paragraph 12.5.4 says scrutiny of eligibility for height and chest relaxation is carried out "after qualifying PET (race) and before PST" by the forces' PET/PST Boards. The sequence is therefore race, then relaxation certificates, then measurement. A candidate declared not qualified in height or chest may appeal the same day to the Appellate Authority at the centre; that decision is final. There is no appeal in the race (para 12.5.5). The conduct of PET/PST and the medical examination is entirely the forces' responsibility and the Commission "will not entertain any representation / appeal / RTI Applications / CPGRAMs" on it (para 12.5.6).

Women submit a self-declaration about pregnancy on reporting. If she declares she is pregnant, a confirmatory test is done and she is declared temporarily unfit irrespective of the duration of pregnancy; her candidature is held in abeyance until confinement is over, vacancies are kept reserved, and she is re-examined six weeks after confinement with a registered practitioner's certificate of fitness (para 12.4.1). In the 2025 results 45 women were temporary unfit; 31 of them had marks above their cut-off.

BMI: the rule added on 9 March 2026

The SSC corrigendum of 29 April 2026 says the Uniform Guidelines for Medical Examination now apply as amended by Ministry of Home Affairs OM No. 45020/03/2025-PP/28 dated 9 March 2026, and prints the amended paragraph. Our reading of its English text: height, weight and chest are measured and recorded by the Physical Standard Test Board for all categories; the Medical Officer is not part of that Board; the PST Board will not reject or disqualify any candidate on the basis of weight; weight is measured and recorded by the Medical Officer at the medical examination; and the normal range of BMI is 18 to 25, with a candidate below 18 or above 25 rejected as underweight or overweight. BMI is weight in kilograms divided by the square of height in metres. The copy of the memorandum on the SSC page is a scan and its Hindi text is not legible, so we read only the English.

The table is our arithmetic: the weight window at which BMI is exactly 18 and exactly 25. A man of 170 cm is inside the range between 52.0 and 72.3 kg. The memorandum is about the medical examination; it does not make weight a PST criterion, which is why we describe BMI as a medical-stage ground.

What happened to the physical test candidates in 2025

The only full set of numbers for the PST/PET stage comes from the 2025 examination (SSC write-up of 13 October 2025). 394,121 candidates (40,213 women and 353,908 men) were shortlisted on the written result, and the forces ran the PET/PST from 20 August to 15 September 2025.

Three observations, all arithmetic of the printed counts. One in three shortlisted candidates (34.2 per cent) did not attend. Of those who attended, 51.1 per cent did not qualify, and the rate is almost identical for men (118,797 of 232,439, 51.1 per cent) and for women (13,781 of 26,875, 51.3 per cent). And fewer than a third of those shortlisted (32.2 per cent) were qualified at the end of the stage. The commission then shortlisted roughly 95,000 of the qualified for the medical and document stage, about 1.8 times the posts (95,575 against 53,690, our division); after medical and documents, the final result recommended 50,047 candidates against 53,690 posts. The write-up does not split PET from PST failures, so we cannot say how many were lost on the track and how many at the measuring tape.

Our reading of what this means for your preparation: the written exam decides whether you are called, and the race decides whether the call counts. A candidate who has not run 5 km in under 24 minutes (4:48 per km) in training, or 1.6 km in 8:30 for women, should treat the PET as the harder half of the selection, because half of those who turn up fail it or the measurements.