₹82,45,40,800. That is what Jammu and Kashmir's two recruitment agencies collected in application and examination fees between October 2024 and September 2026, according to figures the government placed before the Legislative Assembly this week.
If you have filled a JKSSB or JKPSC form in the last two years — and in Jammu, that is a very large share of everyone between 21 and 32 — a small part of that total is yours. Here is what the number is made of, and what the government says it pays for.
The split
The two agencies are not equal contributors. The J&K Services Selection Board, which handles the high-volume non-gazetted recruitment that most graduates apply to, accounts for the overwhelming majority:
- JKSSB — ₹67,44,41,800
- JKPSC — ₹15,00,99,000
That ratio is not surprising once you look at what each advertised. Over the same period JKSSB put out 10,379 posts and JKPSC 1,862, for a combined 12,241 posts advertised. JKSSB adverts also draw far larger applicant pools per post, because their eligibility bars — matric, 10+2, a general degree — are ones most people clear.
What the money bought, so far
Against those 12,241 advertised posts, 4,702 selections have been finalised:
- JKPSC — 1,768 selections finalised
- JKSSB — 2,934 selections finalised, of which 1,376 are Jammu division and 1,558 Kashmir division
The process is not finished. The reply records 935 posts where the JKPSC selection process is still running, 304 that are to be readvertised, and 20 where a fresh advertisement is pending. So the gap between "advertised" and "selected" is partly a backlog and partly simply the clock — a recruitment cycle here routinely runs past two years from advert to appointment letter.
The wider picture is one we reported earlier this week: 7,580 selections completed against 14,270 vacancies referred to the two agencies since October 2024. And the pool waiting behind all of it is the 40,672 vacant government posts logged across departments.
The Jammu division share
One number in the reply is worth isolating, because it is the one a Jammu reader is actually in. Of JKSSB's 2,934 finalised selections, 1,376 are Jammu division and 1,558 Kashmir division — a near-even split, slightly favouring Kashmir.
That split matters because of how J&K adverts are structured. Most JKSSB recruitment is not a single UT-wide competition. Posts are carved into UT cadre, divisional cadre and district cadre, and a divisional-cadre post advertised for Jammu is a separate contest, with its own merit list and its own cut-off, from the identically-titled post advertised for Kashmir. Two candidates with the same score can get different outcomes purely on which cadre they applied against.
Where the fee goes, in the government's own words
The reply is explicit that fees are not meant to cover the whole cost of running a recruitment. The government said the fees "partly meet the costs associated with recruitment", and itemised them as:
- processing and scrutiny of applications
- conducting examinations
- hiring examination centres and manpower
- preparing and handling question papers
- security arrangements
- information technology infrastructure
- evaluation and declaration of results
It also noted that fee concessions apply to specified categories wherever admissible — which is why reserved-category candidates pay a lower band on most J&K adverts.
One thing the reply did not do is break the total down per application, or say how many individual candidates it came from. So the arithmetic that would tell you the average spend per aspirant is not available from this document, and we are not going to estimate it for you.
Why this is worth knowing before the next advert
The practical value of a figure like this is that it makes the scale of the exam economy visible. A Jammu graduate who is seriously chasing government work does not fill one form a year. Between JKSSB divisional and district cadre adverts, JKPSC notifications, and the national exams with J&K centres, a committed candidate can easily be paying into a dozen separate recruitment processes across a season, each with its own fee, its own document set and its own non-refundable clock.
Two habits follow from that, and both are worth forming early:
- Read the cadre line before you pay. J&K adverts are split into UT cadre, divisional cadre and district cadre. A divisional-cadre Jammu post and a divisional-cadre Kashmir post in the same advertisement are different competitions with different cut-offs. Paying for the wrong one is the most common avoidable loss on this list.
- Check the domicile certificate date. Recent JKSSB advertisements have required the domicile certificate to be issued on or before a stated cut-off date, not merely held by the time of verification. A certificate applied for after that date will not save an otherwise good application — and the fee does not come back.
What happens next
The 935 JKPSC selection processes still running are the near-term thing to watch, along with the 304 posts flagged for readvertisement — those will reappear as fresh notifications with fresh windows, and in most cases fresh fees. JKSSB's own pipeline continues through its numbered advertisement series.
The figures came in reply to Starred Question No. 1/6/41, moved by MLA Yodhvir Sethi, and were answered on 25 September 2026.
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