SBI PO Eligibility Criteria – Age Limit, Qualification, Reservations

The SBI PO eligibility criteria is an important aspect that aspirants must have before applying for the exam. The State Bank of India prescribes the eligibility requirements for candidates to participate in the SBI PO (Probationary Officer) recruitment process. Parameters like age limit, educational background, reservation, category, nationality, etc. are the major components that collectively form SBI PO eligibility criteria. Candidates applying for the SBI PO examination must meet all the conditions without fail. 

The conducting authority reserves the right to reject the applications that don’t fulfil the eligibility requirements of SBI PO. Hence, candidates must check the eligibility criteria before proceeding with the SBI PO application form submission. SBI also specifies the relaxation criteria for different categories of candidates in terms of age, academic qualification, number of SBI PO exam attempts, etc. 

For instance, candidates belonging to the unreserved categories must fall in the age bracket of 21 years to 30 years. However, there is a relaxation of 5 years for SC and ST candidates. In addition, every candidate must hold a graduation degree (in any field)  to fulfil the basic qualification criteria for the SBI PO exam. Read this article to get updated information on SBI PO eligibility criteria 2021.

SBI PO Eligibility Criteria 2021 – Detailed Requirements

Candidates must ensure that they fulfil the mandatory conditions before applying for the SBI PO exam. Every single criterion stated under the SBI PO eligibility requirements is important and those who fail to meet the same cannot proceed ahead for the SBI PO recruitment process. The authority can cancel the candidature of ineligible applicants at any stage of the selection procedure. 

The parameters that come under SBI PO eligibility criteria include:

1. Age Limit
2. Nationality
3. Academic Qualification

These are specified below in detail: 

Age Limit and Relaxation

Candidates who apply under the unreserved category must ensure that they fall in the age range of 21 to 30 years as of April 1, 2021. It means that the aspirants who are born before April 2, 1989, and after April 1, 1998, are ineligible to apply for SBI PO 2021. The category-wise age relaxation is mentioned in the table below:

Category-wise Age Relaxation in SBI PO Exam

Category	Age Relaxation
SC (Schedule Caste)/ST (Schedule Tribe)	5 Years
Kashmiri Migrants (with domicile of J&K from January 1, 1980 to December 31, 1989)	5 Years
People from families affected in 1984 riots	5 Years
Other Backwards Classes (OBC) from Non-Creamy Layer*	3 Years
Persons with Disabilities (PWD) – SC or ST	15 years
PWD – General  or EWS	10 years
PWD – OBC	13 years
Emergency Commissioned Officers, Ex Servicemen or  Short Service Commissioned Officers who have been in the military service for 5 years and completed their assignment and have physical disability	5 years

*Candidates belonging to the OBC category with a  family income of less than Rs. 8 lakh per annum can avail benefits of OBC-NCL category.

Read More : SBI PO Syllabus – Prelims, Mains, Exam Pattern, Books, Preparation Tips

Nationality

Candidates must belong to any of the following nationalities to fulfil the SBI PO eligibility criteria:

1. Those who have Indian citizenship or 
2. Those who are a subject of Nepal or Bhutan or
3. Those who are Tibetan Refugees and permanently settled in India before January 01, 1962 or
4. Persons of Indian Origin (PIO) or Overseas Citizens of India (OCI) who came from countries like Burma, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Vietnam or East African countries like Kenya, Zaire, Tanzania, Zambia, Malawi, Uganda, or Ethiopia and have the intention to get permanently settled in India

Note – Candidates belonging to the categories mentioned in points 2, 3, 4 must have a certificate of eligibility issued by the Govt. of India in their favour.

Academic Qualification

Candidates aspiring to apply for SBI PO must possess the below mentioned educational qualifications:

1. Applicants must have completed graduation or any other equivalent course in any stream from a college or university recognized by the Central/State Government.
2. Candidates who are appearing in the final year of graduation can also apply, provided they present the passing certificate of graduation as evidence at the time of the interview round
3. Aspirants who possess the certificate of IDD or Integrated Dual Degree certificate must have passed the course on or before 31st August 2021
4. Those who have completed the course of Chartered Accountancy are also eligible for the SBI PO exam
5. Candidates must note that the date of passing the graduation or other equivalent course should match with the date mentioned in the certificate or mark sheet issued by the institute
6. In case your university releases the result of the qualifying exam (graduation) on its web portal, the date on which the result is updated online will be considered as the passing date

Minimum Marks in Qualifying Exam

State Bank of India has not described any minimum percentage requirement in graduation for the SBI Probationary Officer (PO) exam. However, candidates must pay heed to the below given key facts pertaining to the percentage of marks in the qualifying exam:

1. The authority requires the candidates to calculate their percentage obtained in graduation up to two decimal points and mention the same in the SBI PO application form.
2. If a candidate scores 59.99% or 54.99% in graduation, the decimal points will not be considered to round off the score and hence, marks will be treated as less than 60% or 55%.
3. In cases where applicants are awarded CGPA or OGPA, it is supposed to be converted into a percentage.
4. During the interview process, selected candidates need to furnish the passing certificate issued by their respective institutions with proper conversion details of marks or grades into percentages.   

Who is not eligible to apply for SBI PO 2021?

Some other conditions that come under SBI PO eligibility criteria 2021 are as follows:

1. Candidates cannot apply for SBI PO if they have witnessed any default in credit card, loans or have a negative CIBIL report
2. If the aspirants have charges against their character or morality in the form of report, they are not eligible for the SBI PO exam

SBI PO Eligibility Criteria 2021 – Reserved Categories

SBI has specified the eligibility requirements on the basis of candidates’ category, which are mentioned below:

1. SC/ST candidates have to submit their category certificate issued by the Government of India during the interview round of the recruitment process to claim the benefits under this category 
2. SC and ST candidates need to mention their category certificate details while filling SBI PO application form 
3. General category candidates should only mention their category in the application form as they do not have any certificate
4. Person with disability or PwD category applicants also need to enter their details in the application form of SBI PO 
5. OBC candidates who come under a specific category of “Non-Creamy LAYER” can avail of the benefits of OBC reservation 
6. Candidates who fall under the EWS category can take the advantage of reservation only if they submit an Income and Asset Certificate (as instructed by the government). These candidates must specify their category as GEN or GEN (LD) or GEN (HI) or GEN (VI) or GEN (D&E) 

As per the available vacancies in the SBI PO recruitment process 2019, the percentage of seats reserved for various categories can be calculated as below:

SBI PO Reservation Scheme

Categories	Number of Vacancies
SC	15%
ST	7.5%
OBC (Non-Creamy Layer)	27%
Economically Weaker Section (EWS)	10%
General (Unreserved Category)	40.5%

Note – A 4% horizontal reservation is applicable to the total number of available seats every year. In SBI PO 2019-20 recruitment, there were 2000 vacancies out of which 80 seats were reserved for candidates having benchmark disabilities. It means that a candidate selected against the PwD category will be placed in his/her respective category by making the necessary adjustments.     

SBI PO Eligibility Criteria – Benchmark Disabilities 

SBI has implemented reservation rules for candidates with physical disabilities and the eligibility norms for them are decided as per the same. Let’s look into the ground facts of these categories:

PwD (Persons with Disability) Category

According to Section 34 of Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act (RPWA), 2016, it is stated that candidates with benchmark disabilities will get a 4% reservation. Refer to the below-given details regarding the disabilities of the candidates that come under this act:

1. LD or Locomotor Disabilities – Where a person is unable to perform distinctive activities related to self-movement. It is caused due to the affliction of the musculoskeletal or nervous system and includes persons with Cerebral Palsy, Dwarfism, Leprosy Cured, Muscular Dystrophy and victims of acid attack. 
2. Those who are categorized as ‘Orthopedically Challenged Persons’ also come under LD with the description as OA or One arm affected (Right or Left), OAL or One arm and One Leg affected, OL or One leg affected (Right or Left) and BL or Both legs affected but not arms.

Candidates that come under OA and OAL category 

These persons have normal bilateral hand functions and come under below given disabilities:

1. Persons who are Leprosy cured suffer from various disabilities other than leprosy that includes loss of sensation in feet or hands, loss of sensation and paresis in eyelid and eye. They do not carry any manifest deformity
2. Persons with manifest deformity and paresis but with healthy feet and hand movements that help them to get involved in economic activity
3. Persons who suffer from extreme physical deformity and also advanced age come under this category
4. Those with the genetic or medical condition of Dwarfism where the height of an adult is not more than 4 feet 10 inches or 147 centimetres
5. Cerebral palsy implies a group of non-progressive neurological conditions that restricts coordination of muscles and physical movements and muscle coordination. This happens due to the damage in particular areas of the brain before or after birth.
6. Acid attack victims are categorized as the persons who are disfigured owing to the assaults by acid or some other corrosive substance
7. Muscular dystrophy, which is a group of genetic muscle diseases where the muscles are affected. Those with multiple dystrophy suffer from the condition of missing information in their genes due to which they lack proteins that are required for healthy muscles. It also contains the conditions of skeletal muscle weakness, death of muscle cells and tissue and defects in muscle proteins

Visually Impaired (VI) Persons 

Persons with visual impairment with any of the below-given conditions post-correction can apply for SBI PO: 

1. Blindness where candidates suffer a total loss of vision or visual acuity less than 3/60 or less than 10/200 after best possible correction or restriction in vision field making an angle of less than 10 degree
2. Low Vision where visual acuity is less than 6/18 or not more than 20/60 or up to 3/60 or up to 10/200 with best possible corrections or restriction in vision field due to  the angle, not more than 40 degree up to 10 degree

Hearing Impaired (HI) Persons

1. Deafness, where the person carries hearing disability (in both ears) of 70 DB in speech frequencies 
2. Hard hearing,  where candidates suffer from hearing loss of 60 DB to 70 DB in speech frequencies (in both ears)

Other Types of Disabilities

SLD, MI etc are among other disabilities and the candidates are categorized accordingly while deciding their eligibility. These are as under:

1. SLD or Specific Learning Disability implies a heterogeneous group of conditions where the person finds difficulty in reading, speaking, writing, spelling and quantitative calculations. It also involves other conditions such as perceptual disabilities, dysgraphia, dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia and developmental aphasia.
2. MI or Mental Illness indicates a substantial disorder of mood, thinking, perception or memory that affects behaviour, judgment, ability to accept reality or to meet day to day demands of life. On the other hand, mental retardation includes the conditions where the mind of a person is underdeveloped followed by subnormality of intelligence 
3. LD, HI, VI, MI and SLD come under the category of multiple disabilities

Candidates must remember the fact that the reservation benefits are applicable for those who produce disability certificates issued by a Competent Authority as per the rules and regulations laid down by the Government of India. The concerned authority will indulge in proper verification of the certificate.

SBI PO Eligibility Criteria 2021 – Category-wise Attempts

Talking about the number of times that the candidates are allowed to appear for the SBI PO examination, a few guidelines have been laid down for different categories. These guidelines are:

1. The authority defines the number of attempts on the basis of candidates’ category
2. The concerned authority will initiate the counting of the attempts from SBI PO exams conducted on and after February 2022
   
3. SBI PO Prelims is not considered as an attempt

Go through the below-given table to understand the same:

Number of Attempts in SBI PO Exam (Mains & GD-PI)

Category Type	Number of Attempts Allowed
General	4
OBC	7
Gen (PWD)	7
OBC (PWD)	7
SC or ST	No Limit
SC(PWD) or ST (PWD)	No Limit

SBI PO Recruitment 2021 – Number of Vacancies

State Bank of India has released the SBI PO recruitment advertisement 2021. This year, SBI has announced a total of 2056 vacancies for the post of PO. The table given below comprises the details of SBI PO seats available for various categories in the previous year.

SBI PO Vacancy 2021

Category	Vacancy	Backlog	Total
SC	300	24	324
ST	150	12	162
OBC	540	20	560
EWS	200	–
GEN	810	–	810
Total	2000	56	2056

 

SBI PO Vacancy (PwD Category) 2021

Category	Vacancy	Backlog	Total
LD	20	–	20
VI	20	01	21
HI	20	36	56
d & e	20	09	29

*VI: Vision Impairment

*HI: Hearing Impairment

*LD: Learning Disabilities

SBI PO Notification 2021

Particulars	Details
Name of the Examination authority	The State Bank Of India
Official Website	www.sbi.co.in/careers www.bank.sbi/careers
Post Name	Probationary Officer (PO)
Total Post	2056
Advertisement Number	CRPD/PO/2021-22/18
SBI PO online form start date	5th October 2021
Last date of SBI PO registration date	25th October 2021
Required Education Qualification	Graduate
Age Limit	21 to 30 years
Application Mode	Online
Selection Process	Preliminary Mains Group Discussion and Interview Final selection
SBI PO Salary 2021	Basic Pay – INR 27,620 Pay breakup: 23,700 – 980 x (7) – 30,560 – 1145 x (2) – 32,850 – 1310 x (7) – 42,020

SBI PO Eligibility Criteria – Frequently Asked Questions or FAQs

✔️ Who decides category-wise reservation and SBI PO eligibility criteria?

State Bank of India is the concerned authority that is responsible for prescribing SBI PO eligibility criteria along with reservation rules in compliance with the directives of the Government of India.

✔️ Is there any clause of age relaxation for General category candidates?

No. Candidates who fall under the general category cannot get any relaxation in age while applying for SBI PO exam. The age of general candidates should lie between 21 to 30 years to participate in the SBI PO recruitment process.

✔️ I am a citizen of Nepal? Can I apply for the SBI PO exam?

Yes, as per the SBI PO eligibility requirements, candidates with Nepal citizenship can apply for the SBI PO exam. But you must have a certificate of eligibility issued by the Govt. of India in your favour.

✔️ How much percentage is reserved for the candidates with benchmark disabilities as per the reservation scheme of SBI PO exam?

As per section 34 of Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act (RPWA), 2016, 4% reservation is fixed for the candidates with benchmark disabilities.

✔️ How many attempts are allowed for SC or ST and SC (PwD) and ST (PwD) category candidates in the SBI PO exam?

There is no limitation of attempts for SC, ST, SC (PwD) and ST (PwD) candidates. They can apply as many times as they aspire to until they cross the defined age criteria.