What PEA recruitment is
There is no Puducherry Public Service Commission, and the search results that seem to promise one are almost always Punjab Public Service Commission pages picked up by the same “PPSC” initialism. Article 315 of the Constitution provides for a Public Service Commission for the Union and for each state, but makes no provision for one in a Union Territory, so Puducherry simply does not have the commission structure that Punjab, Goa or Himachal Pradesh each run. Group A and most gazetted Group B posts in Puducherry are filled through the Union Public Service Commission on an all India basis instead.
The body that actually exists, and actually runs a written competitive exam, is the Puducherry Examining Authority (PEA), constituted under the Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms (DPAR) to recruit for non-gazetted Group C and Group B posts. PEA is the closest thing Puducherry has to SSC: it runs a Combined Graduate Level (CGL), Combined Higher Secondary Level (CHSL) and Combined Secondary Level (CSL) examination for the Union Territory’s own departments, graded by qualification the same way SSC’s CGL and CHSL exams are, rather than one single exam for every post.
The 2025 cycle
PEA’s current combined recruitment cycle was notified on 16 November 2025 (Notification No. A-34012/3/E-5/PEA/2025), opening 484 posts across administrative, technical and agricultural roles: Lower Division Clerk (129 posts), Junior Library Attendant (26), Statistical Inspector (26), Library and Information Assistant (25), Upper Division Clerk, Agriculture Officer, Artist and Gallery Assistant among others. Online applications opened 18 November 2025 and closed 14 December 2025. Separately, the Puducherry Police Department ran its own Group C recruitment for 148 Police Constable posts in the same window (applications 13 August to 12 September 2025), selected through a physical test, a written examination and document verification rather than through PEA’s CGL/CHSL/CSL ladder.
How the exam is structured
Every notified post sits in one of three qualification tiers. Combined Secondary Level (CSL) is for Class 10 pass posts, Combined Higher Secondary Level (CHSL) for Class 12 or diploma posts, and Combined Graduate Level (CGL) for degree-holder posts, including a specified subject where the post calls for one, such as a degree for Agriculture Officer. Paper-I, an objective multiple choice paper of not less than 100 questions and not less than two hours, is compulsory at every tier. Posts notified at the CHSL and CGL tiers add a Paper-II, also objective, where the specific notification calls for one; the indicative syllabus for both papers is published separately with each recruitment notification rather than fixed once for every cycle, so check the current notification’s own annexure rather than a previous cycle’s.
A detail worth knowing before exam day: the question paper is bilingual by exam centre, not uniformly in Tamil. Puducherry recognises Tamil, Malayalam and Telugu alongside English as official languages under the Pondicherry Official Language Act, with Malayalam specific to Mahe and Telugu specific to Yanam. PEA’s own competitive examination rules carry this through directly: candidates at the Puducherry and Karaikal centres get their paper in English and Tamil, candidates at Mahe get English and Malayalam, and candidates at Yanam get English and Telugu. The General English section itself is never translated into the regional language, whichever centre you sit at.
Who can apply
Qualification depends on the tier and the specific post, from a Class 10 pass for CSL posts up to a relevant degree for CGL posts. The general age band for most Group C and Group B (Non-Gazetted) posts runs 18 to 32 years, reckoned as on 1 January of the notified year, with OBC/MBC/EBC candidates getting 3 years’ relaxation, SC/ST candidates 5 years, and PwBD candidates across all categories 10 years. Confirm the exact age band against the specific post in the current notification, since it is set per post rather than fixed once for the whole PEA cycle. No application fee figure for the 2025 cycle was confirmed in the sources checked for this page; check the current notification at recruitment.py.gov.in before paying anything claimed to be a PEA fee.
After the written exam
Posts that need one add a skill test (typing or a computer proficiency test for clerical posts) or a physical efficiency test (for posts such as Police Constable); PEA’s CGL/CHSL/CSL ladder itself carries no interview. Document verification and a medical examination follow for every post before a final offer. Run your expected attempt count through the negative marking calculator before deciding how aggressively to guess on Paper-I, and use the photo resizer to match whatever photograph specification the current notification states, since PEA sets its own dimensions per cycle rather than reusing a fixed standard.
How this compares to other recruitment bodies
PEA sits at the same tier as JKSSB in Jammu and Kashmir and Assam ADRE: a Union Territory or state recruitment board filling non-gazetted posts through its own combined written exam, rather than a full Public Service Commission running a multi-stage civil service exam the way Punjab’s PPSC or Goa’s GPSC do. Candidates comparing Puducherry recruitment with the national SSC CGL and SSC CHSL exams will recognise the same graduate/higher-secondary split; the difference is scale and reach, since PEA recruits only for Puducherry’s own departments across its four regions (Puducherry, Karaikal, Mahe and Yanam) rather than across India. The official recruitment portal, recruitment.py.gov.in, linked above, is the only reliable source for which notification is currently open, its exact post breakdown, and its own syllabus annexure.