If you are from Madhya Pradesh and you want a government job that is not a lottery ticket, MP Vyapam Group 2 deserves a serious look. It is the bucket where MPESB puts most of its supervisory and officer-level non-gazetted posts. Agriculture Extension Officer, Assistant Accounts Officer, Lab Technician, Sub Engineer, Statistician and dozens more sit here.
The confusing part for most students is the name. There is no single "Group 2 exam". MPESB splits it into Sub Group 1, 2, 3 and 4, and each one runs on its own notification, its own syllabus paper and its own calendar. Get that right and half your confusion is gone. Below is where things stand as of 30 July 2026.
Latest notification and important dates
Two Group 2 recruitments are live or recently done. The big one right now is the Rural Agriculture Extension Officer (RAEO) advertisement with 2,784 posts.
| Event | RAEO (Krishi Vistar Adhikari) | Sub Group 3 (454 posts) | Sub Group 4 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Notification | 2 July 2026 (out) | 29 Oct 2025 (out) | Awaited |
| Apply online | 3 to 17 July 2026 (closed) | 29 Oct to 12 Nov 2025 (closed) | Not announced |
| Correction window | 3 to 22 July 2026 | till 17 Nov 2025 | Not announced |
| Exam date | 5 August 2026 (revised from 2 Aug) | 23 January 2026 (held) | April 2026 slot in calendar, tentative |
| Admit card | About 4 days before exam | Released | Not announced |
| Official site | esb.mp.gov.in | esb.mp.gov.in | esb.mp.gov.in |
Two honest notes. The Sub Group 4 recruitment (Assistant Grade 3, Junior Accountant, DEO type posts, roughly 500 seats) has not been formally advertised yet, so treat that slot as a calendar entry and nothing more. Sub Group 2 (around 131 posts) and Sub Group 1 are pencilled in for September and October 2026, again tentative. Do not plan leave around a tentative date.
Official sources worth bookmarking:
- MPESB official portal: https://esb.mp.gov.in
- Application portal: https://esb.mponline.gov.in
- MPPSC (for the higher officer route): https://mppsc.mp.gov.in
Keep an eye on our exam news updates so you don't miss the short 15-day application windows MPESB likes to use.
What the job actually is
This depends fully on which post you clear, so let's take the biggest one. A Rural Agriculture Extension Officer works under the MP Agriculture Department at the block level. You are the person who sits between the government scheme and the farmer. Your day involves visiting villages in your circle, running demonstration plots, checking soil health card work, pushing seed and fertiliser distribution, reporting crop damage after hail or unseasonal rain, and filling a lot of forms.
It is field work. You will be on a bike in Rewa or Betul at 8 in the morning, not in an air-conditioned cabin. If you have an agriculture degree and you like the subject, it is one of the better state postings. If you hate travel, skip it.
Other Group 2 posts look different. An Assistant Accounts Officer sits in a district treasury doing bill checking and audit. A Lab Technician works in a district hospital. Read the post description in the advertisement before you apply, not after you clear.
Vacancy details
| Recruitment | Total posts | Sample post names |
|---|---|---|
| RAEO 2026 | 2,784 | Rural Agriculture Extension Officer |
| Sub Group 3 (2025-26) | 454 across 43 post types | Statistician, Drug Inspector, Chemist, Accountant, Assistant Accounts Officer, Occupational Therapist, Lab Technician, Field Extension Officer |
| Sub Group 4 | ~500 (calendar figure, tentative) | Assistant Grade 3, Junior Accountant, DEO, Office Assistant |
| Sub Group 2 | ~131 (tentative) | Various supervisory posts |
Reservation follows MP state rules for SC, ST, OBC, EWS, PwD, women (33 percent horizontal) and ex-servicemen. Non-MP candidates can usually apply but do not get reservation or fee concession.
Eligibility
Education. Post-specific. RAEO needs a Bachelor's degree in Agriculture or Horticulture. Sub Group 3 posts need a relevant degree or diploma (B.Com for accounts posts, B.Pharm for Drug Inspector, DMLT/B.Sc for lab posts, and so on). Sub Group 4 clerical posts usually need graduation plus CPCT.
Age (as on 1 January of the recruitment year).
| Category | Age limit |
|---|---|
| Unreserved (male, MP or other state) | 18 to 40 years |
| SC / ST / OBC / EWS of MP | 18 to 45 years |
| Women (all categories, MP) | 18 to 45 years |
| MP government / corporation employees | 18 to 45 years |
| PwD (MP) | Additional relaxation up to 5 years as per rules |
Domicile. You do not need MP domicile to write the exam, but reservation, the reduced fee and the relaxed age ceiling are only for MP residents. That is a real disadvantage if you are from outside.
Physical standards. No PST or PET for Group 2 posts. Only a medical fitness check at the end for some posts. Physical tests are a MP Police thing, not this one.
Application process and fee
| Category | Exam fee | Portal fee |
|---|---|---|
| Unreserved / other state | Rs 500 | Rs 60 (kiosk) or Rs 20 (self) |
| SC / ST / OBC / EWS of MP | Rs 250 | Rs 60 or Rs 20 |
| Correction in form | Rs 20 to Rs 40 per correction | - |
How to apply:
- Go to esb.mp.gov.in and open the live advertisement PDF. Read it fully, especially the post-wise qualification annexure.
- Complete the one-time registration on MP Online with a working mobile number and email.
- Fill personal details exactly as on your 10th marksheet. Name spelling mismatches cause rejections at document verification.
- Upload photo and signature in the given size. Photo must be recent with the date printed on it. MPESB is strict about this.
- Pay the fee, take a printout, and note your application number.
Do this on day two or three of the window, not the last evening. The MP Online portal slows down badly at the end.
Exam pattern
Group 2 papers follow one common shape across sub-groups.
| Part | Subjects | Questions | Marks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Part A | General Knowledge, General Hindi, General English, General Maths, Reasoning, General Science, Computer Knowledge | 100 | 100 |
| Part B | Subject-related (as per the post applied for) | 100 | 100 |
| Total | 200 | 200 |
- Duration: 3 hours (2 hours for some Sub Group 4 papers)
- Mode: computer-based test, some sittings conducted OMR offline
- Medium: Hindi and English
- Negative marking: none
- Qualifying marks: 50 percent for unreserved, 40 percent for reserved categories
- Normalisation applies when the exam runs across multiple shifts
No negative marking means you attempt all 200. Leaving a question blank is a wasted mark. That sounds obvious, yet every year thousands leave 20 questions untouched.
Detailed syllabus
General Knowledge and MP GK. MP history, Rajput and Maratha rule, freedom movement in MP, tribes of MP (Bhil, Gond, Baiga, Korku), folk dances and festivals, national parks and sanctuaries, rivers, minerals, MP districts and divisions, state schemes like Ladli Behna and Ladli Laxmi, MP Panchayati Raj, state symbols, sports personalities. Roughly half the GK section is MP-specific. National and international current affairs of the last 10 to 12 months fill the rest. Our daily current affairs page and the General Awareness complete guide cover the static plus dynamic mix.
General Hindi. Sandhi, samas, upsarg, pratyay, paryayvachi, vilom, muhavare and lokoktiyan, vakya shuddhi, ling and vachan, kaarak, ras, alankar, chhand, Hindi sahitya ka itihas in short.
General English. Tenses, articles, prepositions, subject-verb agreement, active and passive, direct and indirect, synonyms and antonyms, one word substitution, idioms, error spotting, cloze test, short comprehension.
General Maths. Number system, LCM and HCF, simplification, percentage, ratio, average, profit and loss, simple and compound interest, time and work, time speed distance, mensuration, data interpretation. Level is roughly 10th standard. Work through the Quantitative Aptitude complete guide if your basics are shaky.
Reasoning. Series, analogy, coding-decoding, blood relations, direction sense, syllogism, ranking, seating arrangement, Venn diagrams, mirror images, non-verbal figures. The Reasoning complete guide has the full chapter list with solved sets.
General Science. Class 9 and 10 physics, chemistry and biology. Human body systems, nutrition and vitamins, diseases, motion and force, light, acids and bases, metals, everyday chemistry, environment and pollution.
Computer Knowledge. Hardware and software basics, input and output devices, MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint, operating systems, internet and email, shortcut keys, cyber security basics.
Part B subject paper. Fully post-dependent. For RAEO it is agronomy, soil science, horticulture, plant protection, seed technology, agricultural economics, extension education, animal husbandry basics and MP-specific cropping patterns. For accounts posts it is book-keeping, financial accounting, cost accounting, auditing and MP treasury rules. Study the syllabus annexure attached to your own advertisement. Do not use a coaching PDF meant for a different post.
Salary and career growth
| Post type | Pay scale | Approx in-hand |
|---|---|---|
| RAEO | Rs 25,300 to Rs 80,500 (Level 7) | Rs 38,000 to Rs 44,000 |
| Sub Group 4 clerical | Rs 19,500 to Rs 62,000 | Rs 26,000 to Rs 30,000 |
| Sub Group 3 technical / accounts | Rs 28,700 to Rs 91,300 | Rs 42,000 to Rs 48,000 |
| Senior Sub Group 2 posts | up to Rs 36,200 to Rs 1,14,800 | Rs 55,000 plus |
Add DA, HRA by city class, travel allowance, medical, NPS and gratuity. Most new appointees serve a probation period on a fixed stipend in MP, so your first two or three years pay less than the full figure. Nobody tells students this and then they feel cheated. Ask about it before you join.
Growth is steady, not fast. An RAEO can rise to Senior Agriculture Development Officer and then Assistant Director. Accounts staff move up through departmental exams to Accounts Officer. Time-bound pay upgrades come at 10, 20 and 30 years even without promotion.
Previous cut-off trend
MPESB publishes normalised scores rather than clean category cut-offs, so treat these as ranges collected from earlier Group 2 and Group 4 cycles.
| Category | Approximate qualifying score (out of 200) |
|---|---|
| Unreserved | 130 to 145 |
| OBC | 120 to 132 |
| EWS | 122 to 135 |
| SC | 105 to 118 |
| ST | 95 to 110 |
For high-vacancy posts like RAEO the cut-off usually lands a little lower because the applicant pool is restricted to agriculture graduates. For a 5-seat Sub Group 3 post, it can go past 160. Small vacancy plus large applicant pool equals brutal competition. Be honest with yourself about which post you are chasing.
Books and preparation strategy
Skip the thick all-in-one books for a while. Pick one source per subject and repeat it.
- MP GK: Dr Sushil Kumar Sharma or MP Samanya Gyan by Arihant, plus a monthly MP current affairs PDF
- Maths: RS Aggarwal Quantitative Aptitude
- Reasoning: RS Aggarwal Verbal and Non-Verbal
- Hindi: Lucent Samanya Hindi
- English: Lucent General English or Wren and Martin for grammar
- Science: NCERT class 9 and 10
- Subject paper: your own graduation textbooks, they are better than any guidebook
Free reading options are on the Pareeksha Reading Room.
A workable three-month plan. Month one, finish Maths and Reasoning chapters at two per day with 20 questions each, and read one MP GK chapter daily. Month two, start Part B subject revision for 2 hours daily and keep 1 hour for Hindi and English grammar. Give one full free mock test every Sunday. Month three, stop new topics. Revise notes, give three mocks a week, and use topic-wise practice sets to kill weak areas. A ready study plan template can save you the planning time.
If you are also writing central exams, the GK and Maths overlap with SSC CGL and RRB NTPC is large. One preparation, several forms.
Common mistakes
Applying for a post whose qualification you don't strictly meet. MPESB screens documents hard at verification and rejection there is final.
Ignoring Part B. Students spend 80 percent of their time on GK because it feels comfortable. Part B carries the same 100 marks and has far less competition per mark. That is where the merit list is actually decided.
Treating MP GK like national GK. Half the paper is state material. Reading a national GK book alone will not carry you.
Not practising on a computer screen. The CBT interface is different from paper. Give your mocks online.
Waiting for the notification to start studying. The window between notification and exam is often four to five weeks. That is revision time, not learning time.
FAQ
Is MP Vyapam the same as MPESB? Yes. Vyapam was renamed Madhya Pradesh Employees Selection Board. Students still say Vyapam.
What is the difference between Group 2 and Group 4? Group 2 holds supervisory and officer-level non-gazetted posts needing a degree or professional qualification. Group 4 is clerical, mainly Assistant Grade 3, steno and DEO.
Is there negative marking? No. Attempt every question.
Is MP domicile compulsory? No, but without it you lose reservation, the fee concession and the age relaxation.
How many attempts do I get? No attempt limit. Only the age ceiling applies.
Is an interview part of the selection? No. Merit comes from the written exam. Some posts add a skill or typing test, then document verification and medical.
When will Sub Group 4 2026 come out? Not advertised yet. The MPESB calendar shows a slot but no confirmed date. Check the official site weekly.
Is coaching necessary? No. Self-study with a fixed source list, daily current affairs and weekly mocks is enough for most people.
Does the exam happen in Hindi? Yes, the paper is bilingual. You can attempt fully in Hindi.
How much can I realistically expect in hand? Roughly Rs 26,000 for clerical posts and Rs 38,000 to Rs 48,000 for degree-level posts after probation ends.
Related reads on Pareeksha
- MP Patwari exam guide
- MP Police Constable guide
- MPPSC prelims and mains guide
- MP Vyapam Group 4 guide
Final word
Group 2 is not one exam, it is a family of them. Your job is to pick the sub-group and post that matches your degree, then build a two-part preparation with equal respect for Part A and Part B. The RAEO paper on 5 August is the nearest target. If you missed that window, Sub Group 2 and Sub Group 1 are expected later this year, so you have runway.
Start today with one thing. Take a full-length diagnostic test from our MP exam guides section, see your honest score, and build the plan around your weak sections instead of your comfortable ones.
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