PSU Recruitment Through GATE 2026: Which PSUs Still Use GATE

A GATE score is a key that opens some doors and not others. The trouble is that most PSU lists online were written years ago, when nearly every big PSU used GATE. That changed. If you prepare for GATE expecting IOCL or BHEL to call you on your score, you will wait for a call that their current advertisements do not offer.

This page is built only from the PSUs' own advertisements. Where a website did not load for us, we say so and leave the PSU out of the tables instead of filling the gap from secondhand posts.

GATE 2027 Notices Already Out (as of 16 October 2026)

Five PSUs have published an early notice saying they will recruit through GATE 2027. These are heads-up notices: each one says a detailed advertisement, with vacancies and the application link, will follow in 2027.

Three things in this table matter more than they look:

1. GAIL's window closes before GATE results. GAIL takes applications until 18 March 2027. The official GATE 2027 result date is 19 March 2027. On current dates, you will apply to GAIL without knowing your score.
2. GAIL shuts out 2025 graduates. Its notice says candidates who completed their degree in 2025 or earlier are not eligible. Only 2026 graduates and students in the final year (2026-27) can apply, with at least 65% marks.
3. NPCIL is the only one of the five that takes an older score. If you have a GATE 2025 or 2026 score, NPCIL's notice accepts it. POWERGRID, NTPC and GAIL accept GATE 2027 marks only.

GATE 2027 registration itself closed on 16 October 2026 at 10:29 AM, after a last special window, and the official site said there would be no further extension. The exams run on 6, 7, 13, 14, 20 and 21 February 2027. For the full calendar and the correction window, see our GATE 2027 dates and strategy guide. Take GATE dates only from the official GATE site, not from PSU notices: POWERGRID's and Coal India's notices print different GATE 2027 registration dates from each other.

Which PSUs Actually Use GATE Now

This table shows the latest engineer-trainee round we could read on each PSU's own website. "Posts" is what the advertisement printed for that round.

When the switch happened

• IOCL ran its last GATE round on GATE 2024 (advertisement dated 11 June 2024). Its 2025 and 2026 engineer rounds were both computer-based tests.
• ONGC's careers page lists its last GATE round as Advt 1/2024, on GATE 2023 scores. Every engineer round after that was a computer-based test.
• SAIL selected Management Trainees (Technical) through GATE 2024. Its next round, advertised on 12 November 2025, was a computer-based test.
• BHEL's careers portal shows GATE only in its archives, with the newest GATE round being 2018.
• Coal India split in 2026: Mining stayed on GATE (276 posts), while Civil, Electrical, Mechanical, System, Electronics and other branches moved to its own test, CBT-26 (660 posts), with no interview.

What we could not verify

The websites of NHPC, THDC, SJVN and Mazagon Dock did not load from our end on 16 October 2026, and NLC's notice list loads only through a script we did not run. We have left these five out of the tables rather than repeat claims from secondhand sites. ISRO and DRDO were not part of this check.

Pay, Bond and Age in the Latest GATE-Based Advertisements

Bond and age rules differ more than most guides admit. A Rs 9 lakh bond and a Rs 3 lakh bond are very different promises, so read this table before you apply, not after you get the offer letter.

Some advertisements also print an approximate yearly cost to company (CTC). POWERGRID's GATE 2027 notice prints about Rs 11 lakh during training and about Rs 22.5 lakh after training, and says CTC varies with the place of posting. AAI prints "around Rs. 13 lakhs". These are the PSUs' own figures, not take-home pay. For how CTC turns into a monthly salary, compute from the paid components, not CTC divided by 12.

Most of these advertisements add 3 years to the age limit for OBC (NCL) and 5 years for SC and ST candidates, with more for PwBD candidates. The exact rule sits in each advertisement.

How Selection Works When a PSU Uses GATE

There are three patterns, and your preparation should follow the one your target PSU uses.

1. GATE marks plus a short interview round. POWERGRID's GATE 2026 round printed GATE marks at 85%, group discussion at 3% and personal interview at 12%. Interview qualifying marks were 40% for Unreserved and EWS and 30% for reserved categories; group discussion had no qualifying marks. Here, GATE does most of the work, but a weak interview can still drop you below someone a few marks behind you.

2. GATE decides the merit list. AAI's Junior Executive merit list was prepared on the GATE score after application verification, and where scores tied, the older candidate was placed higher. Coal India's GATE 2025 Mining round shortlisted at 1:3 on GATE and then moved to document verification and medical, with no interview printed. NTPC's GATE 2025 round shortlisted for document verification on GATE performance. For these, every extra GATE mark counts directly.

3. GATE only gets you into the room. NPCIL shortlisted candidates for interview at 1:12 on GATE scores, and its 2025 advertisement says: "No weightage will be given to GATE Score during the final selection." The interview qualifying mark was 70% for Unreserved candidates and 60% for others. BARC works the same way: GATE (or its own online exam) only screens, and the final selection is on the interview alone. For these, once you clear the shortlist, your interview preparation is everything.

Which GATE Year's Score Counts

It is often said that a GATE score is valid for three years, so every PSU will take it. The advertisements say otherwise:

• Current year only: POWERGRID, NTPC and GAIL. POWERGRID's GATE 2026 round said: "GATE score of 2025 or prior is not valid." NTPC's GATE 2027 notice says GATE marks of previous years will not be accepted.
• Three years accepted: AAI took GATE 2023, 2024 or 2025 with equal weight. NPCIL's 2025 round took GATE 2023, 2024 or 2025, and its GATE 2027 notice takes 2025, 2026 or 2027.
• Best of three: BARC's OCES/DGFS-2026 brochure took the highest of a candidate's GATE 2024, 2025 and 2026 scores.

So if you missed GATE 2027 registration, an older score still has value, but only at PSUs that accept it. Of the five GATE 2027 notices, that is NPCIL alone.

Step-by-Step Plan for the GATE 2027 Cycle

Step 1: Check your GATE form while correction is open

If you registered for GATE 2027, the official application correction window runs from 14 to 21 October 2026. Check your category and personal details now, so they match the certificates a PSU will ask for at document verification.

Step 2: Match your paper to the PSU's branch

Each PSU maps its branches to GATE papers. POWERGRID's notice maps Electrical to EE, Civil to CE, Computer Science to CS and Electronics to EC. Coal India takes only the Mining paper (MN). GAIL takes Chemical, Electrical, Instrumentation and Mechanical. If you write a paper no PSU on your list accepts, the score cannot help you there.

Step 3: Check the marks rule and your degree year

POWERGRID asks for at least 60% in a full-time engineering degree. GAIL asks for 65% and excludes 2025-and-earlier graduates. NTPC's GATE 2025 round asked for 65% (55% for SC, ST and PwBD). Coal India's Mining round asked for 60%. Check these before you spend on applications.

Step 4: Put the 2027 dates in one place

• GATE 2027 exams: 6, 7, 13, 14, 20 and 21 February 2027
• GAIL applications: 17 February 2027 to 18 March 2027
• GATE 2027 results: 19 March 2027
• POWERGRID applications: tentatively March or April 2027
• NPCIL detailed advertisement: tentatively within 10 days of GATE results
• NTPC and Coal India: dates not given yet

Step 5: Watch the official careers pages

There is no single portal for PSU jobs. The pages we read for this guide are POWERGRID's job opportunities page (powergrid.in), NTPC's careers portal (careers.ntpc.co.in/recruitment), GAIL's careers section (gailonline.com), Coal India's "Career with CIL" page (coalindia.in) and NPCIL's opportunities page (npcil.nic.in). Check them once a week from January 2027.

Step 6: Do not ignore the PSUs that use their own test

IOCL, ONGC, SAIL, BHEL and HPCL recruited engineers in 2025 and 2026 through their own tests, and these tests run on their own calendars. IOCL took applications from 14 August to 3 September 2026 and scheduled its test for 24 September 2026. ONGC's registration ran from 17 to 31 July 2026, with the test on 6 September 2026. The formats differ: IOCL and HPCL deduct 0.25 marks for a wrong answer, while ONGC's test and Coal India's CBT-26 have no negative marking. GATE preparation covers the technical part of these tests, but each also has an aptitude and general section, so plan separately for them.

How We Checked

On 16 October 2026 we opened each PSU's careers page and its latest engineer-trainee advertisement PDF, and recorded the numbers as printed. Where an advertisement printed no figure (for example GAIL's bond, or the vacancy count in every GATE 2027 notice), we say "not printed" instead of estimating. NTPC's advertisements are scanned images with no text layer, so we read those numbers off the page images by eye. Totals marked "our sum" are our arithmetic on printed rows. The full list of documents is in this page's sources.

We do not publish PSU cutoff estimates. Cutoffs come from each PSU's own shortlist notices, and none of the advertisements we read prints one in advance.

Practice Questions: PSU Recruitment Through GATE