The Punjab Subordinate Services Selection Board (PSSSB) held the written exam for Group D posts under Advertisement No. 04/2026 today, 25 October 2026. Careerpower reports that the board published the provisional answer key for Sets A, B, C and D on the same day, with objections accepted from 26 to 28 October. I have not opened sssb.punjab.gov.in myself, and several portals disagree about the timing, so everything below is as reported and needs checking against the board’s notice. The final answer key, the result date and any cut-off are not announced.
What has been released
The exam was an offline OMR test for 2,098 Group D vacancies, described by portals as Sewadar, Chowkidar, Safai Sewak and other Group D posts, held on Sunday, 25 October 2026. Careerpower’s page, updated at about 11 PM today, says the board released the provisional answer key for all four question paper sets on the day of the exam, along with individual OMR response sheets, and that candidates can raise objections until 28 October. FreeJobAlert and a Kollegeapply report give the same release date and the same four sets.
Not every page tells the same story, and the differences are worth knowing about.
An earlier version of Careerpower’s own article, posted earlier today, described an unofficial answer key prepared by its faculty and said the official key would come by 27 October. The page was later rewritten as an official key. A Hindi page from four days ago also expected the key on 27 October. Two other pages, Jobsarkariupdate and Sarkarijobfind, carry post dates of 26 October, which has not arrived yet, so those were generated ahead of time and I would not rely on them for anything the board has not confirmed.
The reasonable reading is that the provisional key went up this evening. Check it on the board’s own website before you do anything that costs money.
Key dates
| Event | Date (as reported) |
|---|---|
| Admit card | 22 to 25 October 2026 |
| Written exam | 25 October 2026 |
| Provisional answer key | 25 October 2026 |
| Objection window | 26 to 28 October 2026 (Jobsarkariupdate gives the cut-off as 5 PM on 28 October) |
| Final answer key | To be announced |
| Result | To be announced; one page guesses November 2026 |
The objection window is three days, and it includes a demand draft and a postal step, so the real working time is shorter than it looks. I come back to that below.
How to get the key
The steps reported by Careerpower are these.
- Go to the board’s website, sssb.punjab.gov.in.
- Open the answer keys section.
- Click the link for the Group D answer key under Advertisement No. 04/2026.
- Choose your question paper set, A, B, C or D, and download its PDF.
- Compare your marked answers with the key.
Careerpower has also hosted copies of the four set PDFs on its own site. Use the board’s copies, not a re-hosted file, because only the board’s PDF is the official one and a portal’s copy can be out of date if the board corrects it.
Match your set before anything else
The single most common error is checking against the wrong set. Question papers in a multi-set exam contain the same questions in different orders, so question 17 in Set A is not question 17 in Set C. If you take the key for a different set, you will mark right answers wrong and wrong answers right, and your estimate will be off by dozens of marks.
Find the set code printed on your question booklet and on your OMR sheet, and use only that set’s key. If you do not have your booklet, check what you carried out of the exam hall. If the code is not on a page you kept, do not guess. A response sheet, if the board provides one for download, will show the set printed on it.
Work out your score
The marking scheme reported by Careerpower is one mark for each correct answer, a deduction of one-quarter mark for each wrong answer, and no deduction for an unattempted question. The paper has 150 questions.
The formula is straightforward: score equals correct answers minus a quarter of wrong answers.
| Correct | Wrong | Left blank | Estimated score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 110 | 20 | 20 | 105.00 |
| 100 | 30 | 20 | 92.50 |
| 90 | 40 | 20 | 80.00 |
| 120 | 28 | 2 | 113.00 |
Those rows are illustrations of the arithmetic, not predictions of what will qualify. Any ‘expected cut-off’ table that appears before the board publishes a figure is a guess, and no cut-off for this exam exists until the board does.
An earlier Careerpower snippet also lists a Punjabi language qualifying section and a separate Part B in the key. I could not confirm how the 150 questions divide between them or whether the Punjabi part carries a pass mark in addition to the main marks. If your paper had a qualifying section, check separately that you meet its minimum, since a good main score can be lost to a failed qualifying test. The notice and the exam scheme will say what the minimum is.
The objection process
This is where candidates can lose or gain the most, and it is also the stage with the most friction. The process reported by Careerpower has several parts.
First, you download the board’s grievance form and fill it in with your objection, one for each question you dispute, with supporting proof. Second, you email scanned copies of the form and the proof to the board’s objection email address by 28 October. Third, you attach a demand draft of ₹50 for each objection. Fourth, you send the original documents, with the draft, to the board’s office in Mohali by Speed Post or by hand.
A few cautions follow from that.
A demand draft is not instant. You must go to a bank, fill in a form and wait for the draft, and the reports I read do not say whom it must be drawn in favour of, or where it is payable. The notice will. If you plan to object, start on Monday morning, not on Wednesday afternoon.
I have not reproduced the objection email address, because the one quoted on Careerpower’s page contains a date string, 30112025, that looks like it was taken from an earlier recruitment’s notice. It may still be the live address, but you should copy it from the board’s own answer key notice. An objection sent to a wrong address is an objection not filed.
Check whether the deadline is for the email, for the arrival of the originals, or both. The reports say the email must be sent by 28 October, and Jobsarkariupdate gives 5 PM. The postal step is described without a clear date. Read the notice and, if it says the originals must also arrive by the deadline, plan for that.
When an objection is worth ₹50
Fifty rupees is little, but the effort is real and the odds depend on the quality of your case.
An objection is worth filing when the board’s key contradicts a clear, citable source: a textbook of the prescribed syllabus, an official government publication, or a standard reference whose edition you can name. It is also worth filing when a question has two correct options, or none, and you can explain why. It is not worth filing because you remember the answer differently, because a coaching faculty’s key differs from the board’s, or because a friend says the answer is wrong. The board asks for valid proof, and a claim without it is likely to be set aside.
Keep each objection short, specific and documented. State the question number in your set, the answer the board gave, the answer you claim, and the source, with the page or section. One strong objection is worth more than ten weak ones, and a bundle of weak ones costs ₹50 each.
Also decide how much a single mark matters. If your estimated score sits far above or below any plausible cut-off, one question will not change your result. If it sits near the line you expect, one mark can matter, and the objection is worth the trouble.
Reading your own estimate honestly
An estimate made from a provisional key has three sources of error. The key itself may change after objections. Your memory of what you marked may be imperfect unless you have the response sheet. And you do not know how many other candidates scored what, so a score on its own tells you nothing about your chances.
A reasonable way to hold the number is as a range. Count the answers you are sure about, then the ones the board’s key and your own answer disagree on, and see how far the total moves if those go the other way. If a handful of disputed questions could move you across a threshold that you believe to be near, those are the ones to check carefully. If not, your time is better spent on the next stage, whatever it turns out to be.
What to take from this paper
A quarter-mark penalty changes how guessing pays. If each question has four options, a blind guess has an expected value of zero: a one in four chance of a full mark against a three in four chance of losing a quarter. Eliminating one option makes a guess worth taking, and eliminating two makes it clearly worth taking. After you have counted your marks, look at your wrong answers. If many were blind guesses, you have learned something about your approach for the next paper, whatever this one’s result is.
Look also at the blank ones. Questions left unanswered are not lost marks in the same way, but a large number of blanks in sections you could have worked out suggests a pacing problem. Note which topics produced the most blanks and wrong answers, and make that your revision list.
Your OMR response sheet
Careerpower reports that candidates can download their individual OMR response sheets along with the key. Where available, this is worth doing before you count your marks. It shows what the board’s scanner read from your sheet, not what you remember marking. A bubble filled lightly, a stray mark, or an answer shifted by one row can all differ from your memory. If your response sheet does not match what you marked, that is a separate matter, and the notice should say how to raise it. The reports I read do not describe a procedure.
What happens after the objections
After the window closes, the board reviews objections, may revise the key, and publishes a final answer key, according to Careerpower. The result follows, with the roll numbers of qualified candidates. The final key can differ from the provisional one, so treat your estimated score as provisional too. An answer may be dropped, changed or given to everyone, and each of those moves your score.
No dates for the final key or the result are announced. One portal guesses that the result will come in November 2026, but that is an estimate and not an announcement.
Background on the recruitment
For context, Sarkarijobfind reports that the recruitment under Advertisement No. 04/2026 opened for applications on 27 February 2026, closed on 20 March, and was reopened from 25 August to 21 September 2026. The reported fee was ₹1,000 for General, OBC and EWS candidates and ₹250 for SC and ST candidates. The written exam was held on 25 October.
Another page from earlier in the year refers to a PSSSB Group D exam held on 5 April 2026. I could not tell which advertisement that belonged to, so do not use its key or its cut-off figures for this exam.
Stay with the official source
Between an exam and its result, a lot of material circulates: keys prepared by coaching faculty, ‘expected cut-offs’, scanned question papers and claims about which answers were changed. Faculty keys are useful for a quick estimate on the evening of the exam, but they are opinions, and they sometimes disagree with the board’s. The board’s key is the one that counts.
Be careful with payments. The only payment in this process is the ₹50 demand draft for each objection, if you choose to object. Nobody else can raise your objection, move your marks or promise a result. A message that asks for money to ‘correct’ your OMR sheet or ‘adjust’ your score is fraud. Get the form, the email address and the postal address from the board’s website, not from a forwarded message.
A plan for Monday to Wednesday
This is my suggestion.
Monday: download the key for your set and the grievance form, and mark every answer. Work out your estimated score. If any answer looks wrong, find the source and decide whether it is strong enough to object.
Monday or Tuesday: if you are objecting, get the demand draft, fill in the form and write out your objections with proof. Read the notice for the address, the deadline and what must arrive by when.
Tuesday or Wednesday: send the email and post the originals. Keep a copy of everything, and the postal receipt.
After Wednesday: wait for the final key, and do not spend money on any service that claims to predict the result.
What is not yet known
- The date of the final answer key and the result.
- Any cut-off, category-wise or otherwise.
- The exact deadline for the postal originals.
- The split of the 150 questions between the qualifying and main sections.
- The payee for the demand draft.
important links |
|
| PSSSB Group D Answer Key 2026 — Set A (PDF) | click here |
| PSSSB Group D Answer Key 2026 — Set B (PDF) | click here |
| PSSSB Group D Answer Key 2026 — Set C (PDF) | click here |
| PSSSB Group D Answer Key 2026 — Set D (PDF) | click here |
| Objection Notice and Grievance Form (Annexure-1) | click here (see latest announcements) |
FAQs
Is the official answer key out? Careerpower, FreeJobAlert and one other portal report that the board released the provisional key for Sets A to D on 25 October. Earlier pages said it would come by 27 October. Confirm on sssb.punjab.gov.in.
What is the marking scheme? One mark for a correct answer, minus one-quarter mark for a wrong answer, and nothing deducted for a question left blank, according to Careerpower.
How do I raise an objection, and what does it cost? Fill in the grievance form for each question, attach proof, and email scanned copies by 28 October. Attach a ₹50 demand draft per objection and send the originals to the board’s office in Mohali. Check the notice for the address and payee.
Which set should I check? The set printed on your question booklet and OMR sheet. Question order differs between sets, so a different set’s key will give a wrong score.
When will the result be out? No date is announced. One portal guesses November 2026, which is only an estimate.