AIIMS Nursing Officer Recruitment 2026 | 2218 Posts

All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi has released the notification for the Nursing Officer Recruitment Common Eligibility Test (NORCET) 11, vide Notice No. 103/2026 dated 24 July 2026, on its official website www.aiimsexams.ac.in. Online registration opens on 24 July 2026 and closes on 13 August 2026. This exam suits candidates with a B.Sc Nursing degree or GNM diploma who want a Group-B government job as Nursing Officer in AIIMS and other central institutes.

A total of 2218 Nursing Officer posts are on offer this year, tentative and subject to change, across AIIMS New Delhi and 26 other participating AIIMS, institutes and hospitals. A full institute-wise and category-wise breakdown is given below. Place of posting depends on the institute a candidate is finally allocated to after the merit list and choice-filling process. Candidates should check all details in the article below.

Information verified from the official AIIMS notification No. 103/2026 dated 24.07.2026. Last verified: 24 July 2026.

AIIMS New Delhi is conducting NORCET 11 to recruit 2218 Nursing Officer posts across 27 participating AIIMS and other institutes, including ESIC New Delhi and JIPMER Puducherry. The last date to apply online is 13 August 2026 (5:00 PM) at www.aiimsexams.ac.in. Selection is through a two-stage computer-based test — NORCET Preliminary (qualifying) followed by NORCET Mains (merit-deciding) — after which qualified candidates fill choices and are allocated seats.

Quick Summary

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About AIIMS New Delhi

AIIMS New Delhi is a premier autonomous medical institute set up under an Act of Parliament, running its own hospital, medical college and research departments. For NORCET, AIIMS New Delhi acts only as the examination-conducting body — it prepares the merit list and allocates seats, but recruitment rules, service conditions, postings and career progression at each participating institute are decided by that institute’s own competent authority, not by AIIMS New Delhi.

NORCET 11 is a common exam covering 27 institutes spread across the country — from AIIMS Avantipora in Jammu & Kashmir to AIIMS Mangalagiri in Andhra Pradesh. Candidates from West Bengal, Sikkim and the North East have two participating institutes close to home in this same list: AIIMS Kalyani (West Bengal) and AIIMS Guwahati (Assam). This is added context, not part of the official notification. Confirm current connectivity and local facilities with the respective institute before choosing it as a preference.

Compared to a single-institute nursing recruitment, NORCET’s structure — one common exam, many institutes, ranked choices — means a candidate’s final posting depends on both their rank and the order of preferences they submit, not on which institute they hoped for. The notification itself confirms NORCET is now held twice a year, so a candidate who misses this cycle is not without another chance soon after.

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Important Dates

One timing note directly from the notification: candidates working in Government, Semi/Quasi-Government, PSUs, autonomous bodies or any government-funded institution must upload their No Objection Certificate (NOC) by 18 August 2026, 5:00 PM — failure to do so leads to cancellation of candidature without further notice.

Vacancy Details and Salary

Pay: Nursing Officer is a Level 7 post in the Pay Matrix, pre-revised Pay Band-2 of Rs. 9300–34800 with Grade Pay of Rs. 4600, Group-B. The notification adds that the posts carry the usual allowances admissible to Central Government servants of similar status at the respective city of posting.

Institute-wise vacancies (tentative):

Category-wise total (all institutes combined): UR — 899, OBC(NCL) — 599, SC — 323, ST — 157, EWS — 240. This sums to the verified grand total of 2218.

The notification carries a note that 80% of seats are reserved for female candidates and 20% for male candidates across participating AIIMS, as per the decision of the 4th CIB meeting held on 27 July 2019. PwBD vacancies are included horizontally within these totals rather than as a separate block, and any PwBD seat that remains unfilled will be carried forward to the next recruitment year as per applicable rules.

The full institute-by-category-by-gender cross-tabulation (Annexure-V of the notification) is more detailed than shown here — candidates should check it directly on the official notification for the exact split at their preferred institute, since these numbers are provisional and may change before the closing date.

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Eligibility

Qualification (either of the two routes below):

• Route I: B.Sc (Hons.) Nursing / B.Sc Nursing from an Indian Nursing Council or State Nursing Council recognised institute or university, OR B.Sc (Post-Certificate) / Post-Basic B.Sc Nursing from a recognised institute or university — plus registration as Nurse and Midwife with the State or Indian Nursing Council.
• Route II: Diploma in General Nursing Midwifery from a recognised institute, board or council — plus registration as Nurse and Midwife with the State or Indian Nursing Council — plus two years’ experience in a hospital with a minimum of 50 beds, acquired only after completing the qualification, its residency period, declaration of result and Nursing Council registration.

Both the qualification and, where applicable, the two years of experience must be completed on or before 13 August 2026, the closing date of registration.

Age limit: 18 to 30 years as on the closing date of registration (13 August 2026), before relaxation.

Age relaxation:

Selection Process

Selection runs through two computer-based test stages, followed by choice-filling and allocation.

1. Stage I — NORCET Preliminary: Qualifying only, 90 minutes, 100 MCQs (20 General Knowledge & Aptitude, 80 Nursing subject), 1/3 negative marking. Qualifying cutoff: 50 percentile (UR/EWS), 45 percentile (OBC), 40 percentile (SC/ST), with a further 5 percentile relaxation for PwBD candidates in each category.
2. Stage II — NORCET Mains: Decides the merit list, 180 minutes, 160 MCQs, case-scenario based, 1/3 negative marking. Qualifying cutoff: 50% (UR/EWS), 45% (OBC), 40% (SC/ST), with a further 5% relaxation for PwBD candidates.
3. Choice and preference filling by qualified, eligible candidates for participating institutes.
4. Allocation of seats, in one round, strictly by merit against the choices filled.
5. Document verification at the allotted institute, including originals of all certificates claimed.
6. Joining at the allotted institute; a candidate who does not join a seat they were allocated has their candidature cancelled for that NORCET cycle.

One practical point from the notification: if any shift of the CBT is held on multiple days or timings, AIIMS applies its published normalisation procedure (Notice No. 35/2023 dated 20 January 2023) before preparing the merit list, so scores across shifts are made comparable.

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Application Fee

Fee is payable only through debit card, credit card or net banking; any bank transaction charge is borne by the candidate. The fee, once paid, is not refunded under any circumstances — except for SC/ST candidates who appear in the examination, whose fee is refunded after the result is declared and their certificate is verified.

How to Apply

1. Visit www.aiimsexams.ac.in and open the NORCET-11 online registration link.
2. Register with your basic details, or use your existing OTR/old registration ID if you have applied in any previous AIIMS exam — a fresh ID with different details will get your application rejected.
3. Fill in educational qualification, category, PwBD and other details carefully; correction after submission is not allowed through any mode, including email.
4. Upload photograph, signature and thumb impression exactly as per the prescribed image guidelines.
5. Pay the applicable fee online through debit card, credit card or net banking.
6. If currently employed in Government/Semi-Government/PSU/autonomous or government-funded institution, upload the NOC by 18 August 2026, 5:00 PM.
7. Download and keep the registration slip and fee payment proof for your own records — no physical copy needs to be sent to AIIMS.

Documents to keep ready:

• Downloaded registration slip
• Downloaded admit card (once released)
• Date of birth certificate
• Caste / Income & Asset (EWS) certificate, if claiming a reserved category
• Disability certificate, if applying under PwBD
• Certificate for age relaxation claimed on any other basis
• No Objection Certificate, if currently employed as applicable
• Educational qualification certificates
• INC / State Nursing Council registration certificate
• Experience certificate, if claiming experience under the diploma route
• Any other certificate specifically demanded by the allotted institute

Important Links

• AIIMS Examination official website — for online registration, admit card download, status of application and all official notices for NORCET-11.
• AIIMS official website — for general information on AIIMS New Delhi.

Should You Apply?

This exam suits B.Sc Nursing graduates and GNM diploma holders (with the required hospital experience) who want a stable, Group-B central government nursing job with a defined pay scale and long-term career path. With 2218 posts spread across 27 institutes, it is one of the larger nursing recruitment drives in a single cycle, though a national common exam of this scale also draws applicants from every state, so competition at the Mains stage is realistically high. This assessment of competition level is added context, not part of the official notification.

A genuine trade-off worth weighing: candidates rank institutes by preference, but the final posting is decided by merit rank against those choices, not by personal preference alone — so a lower merit rank can mean allocation to an institute far from home. On the other hand, a confirmed Nursing Officer post typically opens the path to promotional posts such as Sister Grade and, over a career, Nursing Superintendent roles within the central government nursing cadre. This career-path description is added context, not part of the official notification; confirm current promotion norms with the concerned institute. Candidates unwilling to relocate, or those still completing their residency/registration before 13 August 2026, should not apply this cycle.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sandeep Khati is the founder of India Job Alerts and a B.Tech in Computer Science from JGEC (2010). He started his career as a Systems Engineer at TCS and has been active in digital publishing since 2011, beginning with SearchDarjeeling.com(2011) and working as a web developer and designer at Darjeeling Informatics. Launched in April 2025, India Job Alerts is his most focused project — dedicated to publishing verified government and PSU job notifications for West Bengal, Sikkim, and All-India candidates. Every post is cross-checked against official notifications before publishing.. Know more

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