OSSSC Nursing Officer 2026: Admit Card Out, Exam on 22-23 September

OSSSC released Nursing Officer admit cards earlier this month, and the exam itself is set for 22 and 23 September 2026, roughly four weeks out. That's for 5,989 District Cadre Group-C posts in Odisha, one of the largest single nursing recruitment drives running in the country right now. If you're a GNM or B.Sc Nursing graduate with the exam on your calendar, here's what the paper actually covers and how to use the next four weeks.

At a Glance

Detail	Figure
Vacancies	5,989 (District Cadre Nursing Officer)
Exam date	22 and 23 September 2026, multiple shifts
Admit card	Released, available at osssc.gov.in
Salary	₹29,200–₹92,300 (Pay Matrix Level-8, Cell-01)
Application fee	₹500 General, waived for SC/ST/PwD
Age limit	21–42 (General); relaxations for SC/ST/SEBC/Women (+5), PwD (+10)

Who's Eligible

You need 10+2 plus a Diploma in GNM or a B.Sc in Nursing, registration with the Odisha Nursing Council, and working proficiency in Odia. That last requirement trips people up more than you'd expect: it's a district cadre post, so the state genuinely tests for the local language rather than treating it as a formality. If you're applying from outside Odisha, don't skip preparing for that part.

Exam Pattern: Where the Marks Come From

One paper, 100 questions, 100 marks, two hours, offline OMR format. The breakdown inside those 100 questions is what most candidates underestimate:

Component	Questions
Nursing syllabus subjects	60
Practical skills	25
Arithmetic	10
English	5

The syllabus itself pulls from your GNM/B.Sc Nursing coursework directly: anatomy and physiology, microbiology, community health nursing, medical-surgical nursing, child health nursing, nursing administration, and roughly a dozen more subjects. Negative marking runs 0.25 per wrong answer, and marking more than one option on a question counts as wrong too, so be careful with stray pencil marks on the OMR sheet. Unanswered questions cost nothing. Qualifying marks sit at 35% for General/UR and 30% for ST/SC/SEBC/PwD/Ex-Servicemen/Sports quota candidates.

The Practical Skills Section Is the Easiest to Underprepare For

Twenty-five of the 100 questions test practical nursing skills rather than textbook recall, and it's the section most candidates spend the least time on since it doesn't map neatly to a single subject you can revise in one sitting. If your clinical postings were more than a year or two ago, that's the part worth deliberately refreshing rather than assuming it'll come back to you on exam day.

Your Four Weeks

Window	Focus
Week 1	Full subject sweep across the core 16 nursing topics, prioritizing medical-surgical and community health nursing since they tend to carry the most questions. Alongside that, 15–20 minutes a day on arithmetic and English so those 15 marks don't sit neglected.
Week 2	Dedicated practical-skills revision: procedures, drug calculations, patient care scenarios, the material that's easy to assume you remember and easy to actually forget under time pressure.
Week 3	Timed practice sets mixing all four components in the real 60/25/10/5 ratio, not isolated topic drills. Given the 0.25 negative marking, treat accuracy as the priority over attempting every question.
Week 4	Two or three full 2-hour mocks under real exam conditions, plus a language check if Odia isn't your first language. Ease off new material in the final few days.

For other current openings, browse our Odisha jobs hub or the Nursing and Health jobs hub.