71st BPSC Interview 2026: Expected DV and Interview Dates, Documents to Carry, 120 Marks and the Score You Need

BPSC declared the 71st Mains result on 6 November 2026 and called 3,392 candidates to the interview: 3,185 for the Combined Competitive Examination posts and 207 for Financial Administrative Officer, against 1,298 posts. The interview carries 120 marks, the written Mains 900, and the final merit list is drawn on 1,020. This page is the tracker for what comes next: the dates to expect for document verification and the interview, worked out from the 70th and 69th cycles; what to carry; how the boards work since the 2026 changes; and, from the last two final results, the interview score a candidate at or near the written cut-off needs. It will be updated as each BPSC notice appears.

Status on 8 November 2026: no document verification or interview schedule has been published. The Mains result page has the category-wise numbers and the BPSC interview guide the full process and 40 questions earlier boards asked.

71st BPSC interview at a glance

Category-wise candidates called (CCE posts)

From the result notice of 6 November 2026. The 207 FAO candidates are listed in a separate notice.

BPSC calls roughly two and a half to three candidates per post, as it did in the 70th (5,449 called for 2,035 posts) and the 69th (1,295 for 473 posts, once the FAO, CDPO and DSP posts are counted). The interview therefore eliminates about three in five of those who reached it, which is why the written score you carry in matters as much as the interview itself.

Expected dates, from the 70th and 69th cycles

BPSC publishes no advance calendar for interviews. The two previous cycles are the only guide, and they agree closely on the gap between the Mains result and the first interview. The 71st column is a projection from those gaps, not an announcement.

Two things could move the projection. With 3,392 candidates, the 71st needs about seven weeks of interviews at the 70th pace rather than eleven, so a single phase or two short phases is likely. And the 72nd prelims, postponed on 12 October 2026 with no new date, may be fixed for a Sunday in the same window; BPSC avoids running interviews on an exam day but otherwise overlaps them freely.

Document verification: what to carry

In the 70th, the DV notice of 24 December 2025 asked for three things, and no separate DV admit card was issued:

• The Mains admit card.
• The photo identity card whose number was given in the application, in original with a photocopy.
• The watermarked copies of the documents uploaded with the Mains application, downloaded from the candidate dashboard (the “Download uploaded document” button was live from 26 December 2025 to 17 January 2026), together with the originals.

The uploaded documents are the ones the Mains form asked for: the matriculation certificate as proof of date of birth; the graduation degree or provisional certificate with mark sheets; the caste certificate, EWS certificate, creamy-layer certificate for BC and EBC, or disability certificate claimed in the form, each from the competent Bihar authority and valid on the cut-off date; the domicile or residence certificate where a Bihar reservation is claimed; the freedom-fighter-grandchild certificate if claimed; and a no-objection certificate from the employer for serving government employees. Candidates whose certificates have changed since the form was filled, or who claimed a reservation they cannot document, are the ones DV removes; BPSC’s notices call every candidature “purely provisional” until then. Check the result notice for the exact list when the 71st DV notice comes, and carry two sets of photocopies and a few passport photographs in any case.

How the interview counts, and the score you need

The final merit list adds the 120 interview marks to the 900 written marks. In the 70th, the gap between the written cut-off and the final cut-off was 83 marks for Unreserved candidates and between 77 and 105 across categories; in the 69th it was 86 for Unreserved and 83 to 116 across categories. Those gaps are not one person’s interview score, since the last candidate selected is rarely the last one who qualified in the Mains, but they set the bar. An interview normally yields between 45 and 85 marks.

Apply that to the 70th Unreserved numbers. A candidate who scraped through the Mains at 445 needed 83 in the interview to reach 528, which is at the top of the normal range; a candidate with 460 needed 68; with 475, 53; with 490, 38. The lesson for the 71st is simple: if your written marks (which BPSC releases only after the final result) are likely to be near the cut-off, the interview is where the post is won, and a 70 instead of a 55 is the difference. If you were comfortably above the cut-off, the interview is about not losing marks: a flat 50 still carries a 490 to 540.

The 71st Mains cut-off itself will be known only with the final result. The result page estimates it from the number called; the BPSC cut-off page has every stage of the 66th to 70th for comparison.

What changed in 2026: how the boards are formed

The 70th was the first cycle under rules BPSC put in force from 21 January 2026, and the 71st will follow them:

• Board by lottery. Just before the interview the candidate draws a slip from a container, and the slip decides the board. Earlier the allocation was done by software.
• Code numbers, not names. The board chairman and members see only a code number linked to the roll number; the bio-data they hold does not carry the name.
• Subject experts assigned by software shortly before the day’s interviews begin, so neither candidate nor expert knows the pairing in advance. Boards have four or five members: senior administrators, including serving officers, academics and the subject expert.
• The day itself. Report an hour before the 10:30 am or 2:30 pm shift with the call letter and the documents it lists. A medical examination is done on the day (the fee was Rs 16 in the 70th). Mobile phones, smart or ordinary wristwatches, Bluetooth devices and electronic pens are not allowed inside, and relatives are not allowed on the campus.
• Fifteen to twenty minutes, in Hindi or English as the candidate prefers, with the questions built around the bio-data: home district, graduation subject, optional, hobbies, work experience, post preferences, and the Bihar and national news of the preceding fortnight.

What the 70th boards asked the toppers

Published accounts from the 70th final result (20 June 2026) show how closely the questions follow the bio-data:

• Shraddha Pandey (rank 1, 593 of 1,020), a serving Uttar Pradesh commercial-tax officer: tax evasion and revenue generation; why move from UP to Bihar and how a candidate from UP would adapt to Bihar’s problems; how the two states could share administrative and agricultural practice; her graduation subjects, History and English literature; two situations, rural women’s empowerment and a sudden law-and-order crisis as a Sub-Divisional Magistrate.
• Shashank Gaurav (rank 2, 592) of Chhapra, who had earlier cleared the UPSC CAPF exam: asked about his hobby, singing, and invited to sing; he sang the ghazal from Sarfarosh.
• Rashmi Kiran (rank 6), a former State Bank branch manager from Nalanda: why leave a Rs 1.5 lakh-a-month bank job for the state services.
• Ujjwal Kumar Upkar (69th, rank 1), Hindi-medium with Hindi literature as optional: current political issues; the India-Bangladesh relationship; the difference between a doha and a sortha, which he could not answer and said so; his view on SC and ST reservation, and whether reservation should go if the state encouraged inter-caste marriage.

The pattern: one or two questions on the graduation or optional subject, one on the home district or state, one on the career choice, one or two situational questions for the post applied for, and the hobby taken seriously. The 40 questions on the interview guide are grouped the same way.

A five-week plan from the result to the interview

• Week 1 (now): download and check the Mains application and every uploaded document; get any certificate that has lapsed reissued; write out the bio-data as the board will see it and list ten questions each line could prompt.
• Week 2: home district and Bihar: population, literacy, sex ratio, rivers, crops, industries, the district’s one famous person and one problem; Bihar’s 2026-27 budget heads, the seven resolves (Saat Nishchay), the flagship schemes, the current Governor, Chief Minister and Chief Secretary.
• Week 3: graduation subject and optional at the level of a confident undergraduate: definitions, two current debates, one application to administration. Prepare the posts in your preference order and what each officer does in the first year.
• Week 4: current affairs of the last three months, national and Bihar, with a view on each; mock interviews, recorded, in the language you will use.
• Week 5 (DV and call letter): attend DV with originals and two sets of copies; print the call letter; rehearse the opening minute. Say “I do not know” once in practice so it comes out calmly on the day; the 69th topper did exactly that.

Frequently asked questions

When is the 71st BPSC interview?

Not announced as of 8 November 2026. BPSC declared the Mains result on 6 November and will notify document verification and the interview schedule separately. In the 70th the first interviews came 36 days after the Mains result; on that gap the 71st interviews would begin around mid-December 2026 and run into early 2027.

How many candidates have been called for the 71st BPSC interview?

3,392: 3,185 for the Combined Competitive Examination posts (1,467 Unreserved, 309 EWS, 421 SC, 25 ST, 474 EBC, 405 BC and 84 BC women) and 207 for Financial Administrative Officer, against 1,298 posts.

How many marks is the BPSC interview?

120. The written Mains counts 900 (General Studies I and II and Essay, 300 each), so the final merit list is out of 1,020. General Hindi and the optional paper are qualifying only.

What documents are needed for 71st BPSC document verification?

In the 70th BPSC asked for the Mains admit card, the photo identity card named in the application (original and copy) and the watermarked copies of the documents uploaded with the Mains form, downloaded from the dashboard, with their originals: matriculation and graduation certificates and the caste, EWS, creamy-layer, disability, domicile or other certificate claimed, plus an employer NOC for serving employees. No separate DV admit card is issued.

What interview score is needed to clear the BPSC final cut-off?

It depends on the written score. In the 70th the Unreserved written cut-off was 445 and the final cut-off 528, so a candidate at the written cut-off needed 83 of 120, while a candidate with 475 needed 53. Interview scores usually fall between 45 and 85.

Related pages

• 71st BPSC Mains result 2026: 3,185 called, category-wise numbers
• BPSC interview guide: process, documents, 40 questions
• BPSC cut-off marks: prelims, Mains and final, 66th to 70th
• 72nd BPSC 2026: notification, postponed prelims and vacancies
• BPSC syllabus and exam pattern
• Free BPSC mock test series

Sources

Checked 8 November 2026. The 71st figures are read from BPSC’s result PDFs; the 70th and 69th dates and cut-offs are from the reports listed, cross-checked against each other.

• BPSC: Result of the Integrated 71st Combined Main (Written) Competitive Examination, CCE (6 November 2026)
• BPSC: Result of the Integrated 71st Combined Main (Written) Competitive Examination, FAO (6 November 2026)
• Careers360 (Hindi), 24 December 2025: 70th CCE document verification schedule and what to bring
• Careers360 (Hindi), 3 January 2026: 70th interviews from 21 January
• Careers360, February 2026: 70th phase-2 interviews 9 March to 10 April, rules for the day
• Aaj Tak, 22 January 2026: boards by lottery, code numbers, random experts
• Careers360, 20 June 2026: 70th final result, 2,027 recommended
• Adda247: 70th written and final cut-off marks
• Careers360, 3 December 2024: 69th marks and category-wise cut-offs
• Indian Masterminds, 28 June 2026: Shraddha Pandey on her 70th BPSC interview
• Indian Masterminds: Ujjwal Kumar Upkar, 69th topper, on his interview
• Drishti IAS (Hindi): BPSC FAQ, marks scheme and the usual interview score band