The Staff Selection Commission has published the tentative vacancy position for the Grade 'C' Stenographers Limited Departmental Competitive Examination, 2025, as it stood on 22 October 2026. The table, uploaded on 23 October, shows 314 vacancies across six services — and 85% of them sit in a single cadre, the Central Secretariat Stenographers' Service.
| Service / Cadre | UR | SC | ST | Total | PwBD (horizontal) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Central Secretariat Stenographers' Service (CSSS) | 195 | 48 | 24 | 267 | 11 (3 VH, 3 HH, 3 OH, 2 others) |
| Armed Forces Headquarters Stenographers' Service | 11 | 7 | 4 | 22 | 3 (1 each VH, OH, others) |
| Indian Foreign Service Branch (B) Stenographers | 11 | 1 | 1 | 13 | 2 (1 OH, 1 HH) |
| Railway Board Secretariat Stenographers' Service | 3 | 3 | 3 | 9 | 1 (OH: OA/OL) |
| Central Vigilance Commission | 1 | 1 | — | 2 | — |
| Election Commission of India | — | — | 1 | 1 | — |
| Total | 221 | 60 | 33 | 314 | 17 |
The totals row is ours, not the Commission's — the official PDF gives only per-service figures. Adding them: 221 unreserved, 60 SC and 33 ST vacancies, with 17 horizontal PwBD slots. There is no OBC or EWS column because this is a limited departmental examination — open only to serving Grade 'D' stenographers and equivalent departmental candidates, where mandal reservation runs on SC/ST only.
What this table means at this stage
The LDCE 2025 cycle is deep into its final lap. The skill-test stage results were declared on 25 August 2026 and the final answer key of the written stage was uploaded on 17 September. A refreshed vacancy table at this point usually precedes the final result and service allocation — the Commission allots qualified candidates to cadres in merit-cum-preference order against exactly these numbers.
- CSSS is where the odds are. 267 of 314 vacancies. If you marked CSSS low in your preference order, the maths above is worth re-reading.
- ECI has exactly one vacancy, reserved for ST. The Election Commission slot cannot go to a UR or SC candidate at all.
- PwBD interchange rules are written into the footnotes: the Railway Board's single PwBD slot (OA/OL) can be exchanged with any other available PwBD category if unfilled, and AFHQ's OH and PwBD-others slots are similarly interchangeable.
- Vacancies are as on 22.10.2026 and tentative — cadre-controlling authorities can revise them until allocation.
The official table is mirrored below exactly as uploaded by SSC.