ISRO’s 244 administrative vacancies: a deadline-safe application guide

ISRO’s Centralised Recruitment Board has opened a single recruitment process covering 244 vacancies across six post groupings: Assistants, Junior Personal Assistants, Upper Division Clerks, Stenographers, and small Assistant/JPA allocations in autonomous institutions under the Department of Space. The headline number is useful, but it is not the first decision an applicant should make. The important decision is whether a particular post-and-zone combination matches the qualification, skill and location choices described in the official notice.

This article is a planning aid built from the official recruitment page, the 25-page bilingual advertisement and the active application portal. It does not determine anyone’s eligibility. ISRO explicitly places responsibility for checking every condition on the applicant, so use the live notice and FAQ for the final decision.

The official vacancy tables add up to 113 Assistant posts, 81 Junior Personal Assistant posts, 22 Upper Division Clerk posts, 10 Stenographer posts, 17 Assistant posts in autonomous institutions and one JPA post in an autonomous institution. Those totals span zones such as Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Hassan, Hyderabad, Mahendragiri, New Delhi, Sriharikota and Thiruvananthapuram. A large all-India total therefore does not mean every post exists in every zone or reservation category.

The notice permits applications for different posts under the same or different zones, but it says a candidate cannot apply for the same post in different zones. It also asks candidates applying for more than one post to choose common written-test centres. That makes the zone decision consequential: compare the exact post number, zone and category row before paying, and do not assume a vacancy visible in one zone carries into another.

For Assistant and UDC posts, the notice requires graduation from a recognised university with at least 60% marks or a CGPA of 6.32 on a 10-point scale, completed within the stipulated course duration, plus computer proficiency. For JPA and Stenographer posts, the notice describes a graduation route and an alternative diploma route. The diploma route is not simply any diploma: it is Commercial or Secretarial Practice with the stated marks or CGPA, completed within the prescribed duration, together with one year of Steno-Typist or Stenographer experience. These posts also require a minimum English stenography speed of 60 words per minute and computer proficiency.

One easily missed detail concerns marks and CGPA. Where the university prints only CGPA, the notice says conversion into percentage is not permitted merely because the institution has a conversion formula; the printed CGPA itself must meet the ISRO norm. Dual or integrated degrees have additional rules. Applicants near the threshold should read those clauses directly instead of relying on a general conversion calculator.

The advertised upper age limit is 28 years as on 16 August 2026. The notice lists 31 years for OBC candidates and 33 years for SC/ST candidates where the posts are reserved, with other relaxations for specified categories under Government of India orders. It also supplies birth-date boundaries: 17 August 1998 or later for UR/EWS, 17 August 1995 or later for OBC, and 17 August 1993 or later for SC/ST, subject to the notice’s category and reservation conditions.

Do not treat a category selection as a later paperwork issue. The advertisement says an OBC certificate for an identified OBC post should be valid on the application closing date and in the prescribed central-government format. It similarly calls for a valid EWS income and asset certificate for financial year 2026–27. PwBD applicants should review the disability-category and certificate provisions for the chosen post. A correct category claim, supporting certificate and vacancy row need to agree.

The stated application fee is ₹100 for all posts, but the payment flow initially collects a ₹500 processing fee per application. The notice describes ₹500 for an Assistant/UDC application, ₹500 for a JPA/Stenographer application and ₹1,000 when applying across both groupings. Refunds depend on appearing in the written test or CBT: exempt categories listed in the notice can receive the applicable processing amount back, while other candidates receive the amount after deduction of the ₹100 application fee. No refund is considered for someone who does not appear.

This structure makes duplicate or speculative applications costly. The notice says that when duplicate applications are submitted, only the application for which the fee was received within the deadline will be considered. Enter the bank-account details for any refund carefully, verify the payment status after returning to the portal, and preserve the registration number and payment evidence.

The notice includes detailed image and signature specifications, including a recent colour passport photograph, a clear signature that is not in capital letters, and other uploads. File-size or format failures are mundane but common deadline risks. Prepare compliant files on a computer, keep the originals, and avoid doing the first upload on the final evening.

Selection proceeds through a written test and a qualifying skill test appropriate to the post. The annexures publish separate patterns for Assistant/UDC and JPA/Stenographer. Read the exact pattern for the chosen post now: it confirms whether the role’s computer-literacy or stenography requirement is merely documentary or will be tested later. The recruitment page also links a frequently asked questions document that should be checked for clarifications issued after the advertisement.

Re-open the official ISRO recruitment page rather than an old bookmark to a third-party summary. Confirm that the status remains open, read any new remark or FAQ, and enter through the application link published there. Compare the portal’s deadline with the advertisement. If the portal reports a failed payment, incomplete submission or changed condition, preserve the message and use the official ICRB contact route shown in the notice.

The safest application is not the fastest one. It is the one where the selected post number, zone, qualification route, category claim, documents, payment and final acknowledgement all tell the same story. AvsarIQ’s live opportunity component below will continue to reflect the current database record, while this narrative preserves what the official sources stated when the article was researched.