SBI has opened the Mains call letter download for its Junior Associate special recruitment drive, and the exam is on 29 October 2026. That is six days away. Download it today, because this is the only route to it and the window closes with the exam.
Before anything else, one thing has to be cleared up, because a lot of candidates are reading the wrong page.
Which recruitment is this? Check your advertisement number
SBI is running two separate Junior Associate recruitments at the same time, and they are at completely different stages:
| Backlog special drive | Regular recruitment | |
|---|---|---|
| Advertisement | CRPD/CR/SPLDRIVE/2026-27/16 | CRPD/CR/2026-27/17 |
| Open to | SC / ST / OBC backlog vacancies only | All categories |
| Prelims held | 16 September 2026 | 26 & 27 September 2026 |
| Prelims result | Declared — marks login is live | Not declared as of 23 October 2026 |
| Mains | 29 October 2026, call letter out now | Not scheduled yet |
This page is about Advt 16, the backlog drive. If you applied under Advt 17, there is no Mains call letter for you yet and nothing to download — SBI's careers page still carries the stale "preliminary examination call letter is available" label against that advertisement, which is why so many Advt 17 candidates currently think they have missed something. They have not. Their prelims are over and the result is pending.
Your advertisement number is printed on your prelims call letter and in your registration email. Check it before you read any further.
How to download the Mains call letter
- Open the SBI careers page at sbi.bank.in/web/careers/current-openings.
- Scroll to "Recruitment of Junior Associates Special Recruitment Drive for SC/ST/OBC Backlog Vacancies" and confirm it reads Advertisement No. CRPD/CR/SPLDRIVE/2026-27/16.
- Click "Download Mains Exam Call Letter". It opens an IBPS-hosted login, which is normal — IBPS runs the exam delivery for SBI.
- Log in with your Registration Number or Roll Number and your Password or Date of Birth, then enter the captcha.
- Download the PDF and print two copies. No hard copy is sent by post, and the link comes down after the exam.
Read the venue address on the call letter the moment you open it. The Mains centre is often not the city where you sat the prelims, and with six days left, a different city means travel to arrange now rather than on the 28th.
The document most candidates will leave at home
This is the single most useful thing on this page, so it is going early.
For the Mains you must carry three things, not one:
- Your Mains call letter, with a recent passport-size photograph firmly affixed in the space provided.
- Your photo identity proof in original, plus a photocopy.
- Your Preliminary Examination call letter and the photocopy of the photo ID that the exam officials authenticated and stamped on prelims day.
That third one catches people out every cycle. The handout is explicit: you will not be permitted to appear for the examination without the original photo ID and photocopy, the Mains call letter with photograph affixed, and the stamped prelims call letter and ID copy. If you threw the 16 September paperwork away, start looking for it today — there is no replacement counter at the venue.
Four more exam-day rules worth knowing in advance:
- Report 15 minutes before the reporting time printed on the call letter. Latecomers are not allowed to take the test.
- Signature in capital letters will not be accepted. You sign and give a thumb impression in front of the invigilator.
- Bring a ball point pen. Rough sheets are provided but stationery is not.
- Both call letters, the ID photocopy and the rough sheets are collected at the end of the exam, in the hall.
The Mains paper on 29 October
Four objective sections, 190 questions, 200 marks, 2 hours 40 minutes. Each section is separately timed, so unused minutes in one section do not carry into the next.
| Section | Questions | Marks | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| General / Financial Awareness | 50 | 50 | 35 minutes |
| General English | 40 | 40 | 35 minutes |
| Quantitative Aptitude | 50 | 50 | 45 minutes |
| Reasoning Ability & Computer Aptitude | 50 | 60 | 45 minutes |
| Total | 190 | 200 | 2 hours 40 minutes |
Note the marks column. Reasoning Ability & Computer Aptitude carries 60 marks for 50 questions — the only section where a question is worth more than one mark, and therefore the section where each right answer, and each wrong one, moves your total the most. It is also the section with the most marks in the paper. If you are rationing revision time over the next six days, it earns the largest share.
General English is the only section fixed in English. The other three are available in English, Hindi, Telugu or Urdu for candidates who applied in Andhra Pradesh or Telangana. Picking the medium you actually read fastest is worth real marks in sections timed at 35 and 45 minutes.
The rule that should change how you attempt it
Most candidates carry a habit over from the prelims and from IBPS exams: clear every section, protect the weak one, do not risk a sectional failure. For this Mains that habit is wrong.
SBI's information handout states it plainly: candidates are required to score a minimum percentage of marks on aggregate, the minimum qualifying marks on aggregate are as decided by the Bank, and no minimum qualifying marks for individual subjects are prescribed. It adds that section-wise marks will not be maintained.
There is no sectional cut-off. One weak section cannot eliminate you on its own. What that means in the hall is that you should push hard in your strongest sections instead of spending energy defending a floor that does not exist — and that a section you find brutal on the day is a section to salvage marks from and move past, not to panic over.
What actually decides selection
Your prelims marks are not added. Only the aggregate marks obtained in the Main Examination are considered for the final merit list. Everyone sitting on 29 October starts from zero, whatever their prelims score was.
There is no interview for Junior Associates. These 200 marks are the entire selection. There is no second chance to make up ground, and no personality round to rescue a bad morning.
Final selection is then subject to verification of eligibility and the information in your online application, and to qualifying the local language test described below.
Negative marking is one fourth of the marks assigned to a question for each wrong answer, with nothing deducted for a question left blank. In the 60-mark reasoning section that is 0.3 marks per wrong answer against 1.2 for a right one, so a guess narrowed to two options is still worth taking; a blind guess across five is not.
The local language test, after selection
This is a real disqualifier that candidates discover too late. A test of the specified opted local language is held after provisional selection but before joining, and candidates not found proficient are disqualified at that point.
You are exempt if you can produce a 10th or 12th standard mark sheet or certificate showing you studied the opted local language. For Andhra Pradesh and Telangana the opted languages are Telugu and Urdu. If you have that certificate, locate it now and keep it with your education documents — it saves you a test later. If you do not, know that the test is coming.
The 1,538 backlog vacancies, state by state
This is a backlog drive, so the vacancies are reserved-category only and the distribution is uneven in a way that matters a great deal to where you applied. From the advertisement dated 7 August 2026:
| Circle / State | SC | ST | OBC | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gujarat (Gandhinagar) | — | 289 | — | 289 |
| Maharashtra / Mumbai Metro | — | 165 | — | 165 |
| Madhya Pradesh (Bhopal) | — | 134 | — | 134 |
| Jharkhand | 14 | 119 | — | 133 |
| Karnataka (Bengaluru) | 85 | 35 | — | 120 |
| Odisha (Bhubaneswar) | — | 111 | — | 111 |
| Rajasthan (Jaipur) | 20 | 86 | — | 106 |
| Andhra Pradesh (Amaravati) | — | 88 | — | 88 |
| Tamil Nadu (Chennai) | 65 | — | — | 65 |
| West Bengal (Kolkata) | — | — | 55 | 55 |
| Jammu & Kashmir UT | — | 42 | — | 42 |
| Assam (Guwahati) | — | 39 | — | 39 |
| Telangana (Hyderabad) | — | 32 | — | 32 |
| Uttar Pradesh (Lucknow) | — | 31 | — | 31 |
| Chhattisgarh | — | 26 | — | 26 |
| Chandigarh UT | — | — | 22 | 22 |
| Tripura | — | 22 | — | 22 |
| Punjab | — | — | 18 | 18 |
| Delhi | — | — | 17 | 17 |
| Bihar (Patna) | 12 | — | — | 12 |
| Himachal Pradesh | 11 | — | — | 11 |
| Total | 207 | 1,219 | 112 | 1,538 |
Two things stand out. ST vacancies are 1,219 of 1,538 — nearly four fifths of the drive. And for Telugu-speaking candidates, every single one of the 88 Andhra Pradesh and 32 Telangana seats is an ST seat. There are no SC or OBC backlog vacancies in either state in this advertisement, which is exactly the detail a generic "SBI Clerk 1,538 vacancies" headline hides.
A wait list of up to 50% of vacancies is maintained state and category wise, and candidates are released from it quarterly against non-joining and resignation from the current batch.
One thing to decide before you accept
There is no provision for inter-circle or inter-state transfer for Junior Associates recruited under this drive. Intra-state movement between two circles in the same state is permitted in only two cases — Delhi Circle and Lucknow Circle within Uttar Pradesh, and Mumbai Metro Circle and Maharashtra Circle within Maharashtra.
Everywhere else, the state you applied for is the state you work in. That is worth being clear-eyed about now rather than after joining.
How to spend the next six days
Today: download the call letter and find your prelims paperwork. Both are administrative and both can end your candidature. Do them before you open a book.
General / Financial Awareness is the section to revise, not learn. 50 marks in 35 minutes is a question every 42 seconds, which rewards recall and punishes thinking. Banking and economy current affairs from roughly the last six months is the right scope; new theory at this stage is not.
Reasoning and Computer Aptitude is where the marks are. 60 marks, and the computer aptitude questions inside it are the most learnable content in the entire paper. If any of your six days go to new material, send them here.
Practise with the real section timings. 35, 35, 45, 45 — separately timed. A mock that lets you borrow minutes across sections is not rehearsing the exam you are sitting.
Do not chase an expected cut-off. The qualifying aggregate is decided by the Bank and is not published in advance. The numbers circulating on coaching sites are guesses, and for a backlog drive with this unusual a category spread they are guesses with very little to go on.
Questions candidates are asking this week
"I applied under Advt 17 — where is my Mains call letter?" There isn't one yet. Advt 17 prelims were held on 26 and 27 September and the result has not been declared. The 29 October Mains belongs to the backlog drive only.
"Can I check my prelims marks?" Yes, for the backlog drive. SBI has a "Marks Secured by the Candidate (Phase-I)" login on its careers site that takes your Roll Number or Registration Number with your Date of Birth. It is worth downloading, though those marks do not carry into the merit list.
"The call letter link will not open." It is hosted on an IBPS server and gets heavy traffic in the first days after release. Try a desktop browser, try outside evening hours, and do not leave it to the 28th — if the link fails on the last day you have no fallback.
"Is 29 October confirmed?" SBI's notice states the online Mains examination is scheduled on 29.10.2026 without the "tentative" qualifier it used for the earlier dates, and the call letters are already out. Treat it as firm.
"I have lost my prelims call letter." Check whether the prelims download link is still live on the careers page and re-download it. Note that a re-downloaded copy will not carry the exam official's stamp from 16 September, so take whatever you have, arrive early, and be ready to explain it at the verification desk. Prevention was the only clean solution here.
"Does my prelims score give me any advantage?" None. The marks obtained in the Preliminary Examination are not added for the selection; only the aggregate Mains marks are considered.