Exam Overview
BPSC Advertisement No. 109/2025 is for 9 posts of Project Manager in the Bihar Industries Service cadre under the Industries Department, Bihar. Selection has three stages: a Preliminary Exam, a Written (Main) Exam and an Interview. The prelims is a screening test of general knowledge only; candidates who pass it are called for the written exam, and final selection is based on the written exam and the interview. The exam scheme below is from the official advertisement, and the subject-wise topics are from the two official syllabus PDFs.
Preliminary Exam: Indian Economy and Industries (70 marks)
- Introduction to economics: GDP, GNP, potential GDP, per capita income, purchasing power parity
- Indian economics and planning: sectors of the Indian economy and their components; Sir M. Visvesvaraya Plan, FICCI Plan, Bombay Plan, Nehru-Mahalanobis model, Rolling Plan, Rao-Manmohan Singh model, Gandhian Plan, People's Plan, Sarvodaya Plan; role of the state in planning and development
- NITI Aayog: Planning Commission vs NITI Aayog, aims, structure, functions and achievements
- Fiscal system: fiscal policy, deficits and their types, FRBM Act, N.K. Singh Committee, zero-base budgeting, crowding out, budget reforms, Masala bonds, NRI bonds, debt-GDP ratio, fiscal drag, fiscal cliff
- Monetary policy: LAF, MSF, bank rate, base rate and MCLR, reserve requirements, LCR, CRR, standing deposit facility, open market operations, quantitative and qualitative tools, demonetisation, Urjit Patel Committee
- Inflation: measures and types, GDP deflator, PPI, CPI, WPI, Residex, inflation control, deflation, disinflation
- Taxation: tax system and reforms in India, tax-GDP ratio, inverted duty structure, tax havens, base erosion and profit shifting, DTAA, GAAR, GST, GST Council, GST slabs
- Generations of economic reforms: first generation (private sector, public sector, external sector, financial sector and tax reforms), second generation (factor market, public sector, government institutions, legal sector and critical areas) and third generation reforms
- Globalisation and its impact on the Indian economy
- MSMEs: MSMED Act 2006, MSME Samadhaan, Sambandh and Sampark, entrepreneurship and skill development programmes, infrastructure development programmes, PMEGP e-portal, Udyam Registration, MSME Databank, SFURTI, ASPIRE
- Bihar Industrial Investment Promotion Policy 2016 and Bihar Industrial Investment Promotion Act 2016
The other two prelims sections are Current Affairs – National and International (40 marks) and Mental Ability Test (40 marks). The syllabus PDFs do not give separate topic lists for these two sections.
Main Written Exam: Compulsory Papers
- General Hindi (100 marks, 3 hours) and English (100 marks, 3 hours): you need 40 marks in each to pass, but these marks are not added to the merit list
- General Knowledge (200 marks, 3 hours): counted for merit
- The advertisement says the compulsory papers follow the same syllabus as the Bihar Judicial Service (Main) Competitive Examination
Main Written Exam: Optional Subject (choose one, 200 marks, 3 hours)
The 19 optional subjects are Mechanical, Electrical, Civil, Metallurgical, Textile, Chemical, Computer and Electronics & Telecommunication Engineering, Economics, Mathematics, Statistics, Physics, Chemistry, Business Management, Pharmacy, Chartered Accountancy, Cost Accountancy, Silk Technology and Leather Technology. The main units of each optional subject given in the official syllabus PDF are listed below.
Mechanical Engineering
- Thermodynamics, cycles and IC engines; heat transfer, refrigeration and air conditioning
- Fluid mechanics; fluid machinery and steam generators
- Theory of machines, machine design, strength of materials, engineering materials
- Industrial engineering (production planning and control, inventory, quality management); elements of computation
Electrical Engineering
- Electromagnetic theory, electrical materials, electrical circuits
- Measurements and instrumentation, control systems
- Electrical machines and power transformers, power systems, power electronics
- Analog and digital electronics, microprocessors, communication systems
Civil Engineering
- Building materials, solid mechanics, structural analysis
- Design of steel structures; design of concrete and masonry structures
- Construction practice, planning and management (equipment, PERT/CPM)
- Fluid mechanics, open channel and pipe flow, hydraulic machines and hydropower, hydrology, water resources engineering
- Environmental engineering: water supply, wastewater, solid waste, air and noise pollution and ecology
- Soil mechanics, foundation engineering, transportation engineering
Metallurgical Engineering
- Thermodynamics and rate processes, extractive metallurgy
- Physical metallurgy, mechanical metallurgy, manufacturing processes
Textile Engineering and Fibre Science
- Textile fibres, yarn manufacture, yarn structure and properties
- Textile testing, preparatory processes, dyeing, printing, finishing
- Environmental pollution in chemical processing of textiles
Chemical Engineering
- Process calculations and thermodynamics, fluid mechanics and mechanical operations
- Heat transfer, mass transfer, chemical reaction engineering
- Instrumentation and process control, plant design and economics, chemical technology
Computer Engineering (Computer Science)
- Digital logic, computer organisation and architecture
- Programming and data structures (C), algorithms, theory of computation, compiler design
- Operating systems, databases, computer networks and network security
Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering
- Materials and components; physical electronics, electron devices and ICs
- Signals and systems, network theory, electromagnetic theory
- Electronic measurements and instrumentation, analog and digital circuits, control systems
- Communication systems, microwave engineering, computer engineering
Economics
- Advanced micro and macro economics; money, banking and public finance
- International economics (trade theories, protection, balance of payments, WTO)
- Growth and development (growth theories, planning, human development indices, sustainability)
- Indian economy before and after independence, including the pre- and post-liberalisation eras
Mathematics
- Linear algebra, calculus, analytic geometry, ordinary and partial differential equations
- Dynamics and statics, vector analysis, algebra, real and complex analysis
- Linear programming, numerical analysis and computer programming, mechanics and fluid dynamics
Statistics
- Probability, statistical inference, linear inference and multivariate analysis
- Sampling theory, industrial statistics, optimisation techniques
- Quantitative economics and official statistics, demography and psychometry
Physics
- Mechanics of particles, rigid bodies and continuous media; waves and optics
- Electricity and magnetism, electromagnetic waves and blackbody radiation
- Thermal and statistical physics, atomic and molecular physics, nuclear and particle physics
Chemistry
- Atomic structure and chemical bonding, thermodynamics, solid state
- Chemical kinetics, electrochemistry, photochemistry
- Transition metal chemistry, named organic reactions, polymers, molecular structure determination by spectroscopy
Business Management
- Nature of business and forms of business organisation (sole proprietorship, partnership, joint stock company, co-operative, public sector)
- Promotion, size and scale of business, home trade, retailers, business combinations, rationalisation, plant location, stock and commodity exchanges
- Management functions, organisation and its structure, methods of remuneration, principles of management including Fayol's 14 principles
Chartered Accountancy
- Financial accounting, cost accounting, taxation (income tax), auditing
- Financial management, financial markets and institutions
- Organisation theory and behaviour, human resource management and industrial relations
Pharmacy
- Remedial biology, pharmaceutical chemistry and analysis, pharmaceutics and physical pharmaceutics
- Pharmaceutical microbiology, biotechnology, engineering, human anatomy and physiology, physiological chemistry
- Pharmacology, pharmacognosy, inorganic medicinals, prescription and hospital pharmacy, drug stability and dosage forms
Leather Technology
- Introduction to leather technology, preservation and pre-tanning operations, cleaner beam-house practices
- Bio-chemistry of proteins and collagen; inorganic (chrome) and organic (vegetable, synthetic, resin, aldehyde) tannage
- Leather manufacturing practices, post-tanning operations, analytical chemistry of leather, material testing
- Leather biotechnology, leather product and footwear technology, finishing materials, polymers and synthetics
- Instrumentation and process control, tannery waste management, chemical engineering, professional ethics, entrepreneurship and TQM
Separate syllabus sections for Silk Technology and Cost Accountancy do not appear in the two syllabus PDFs, so candidates choosing these subjects should check the BPSC website.
Marking Scheme and Qualifying Marks
- Prelims: Indian Economy and Industries 70 marks, Current Affairs 40 marks and Mental Ability 40 marks; all questions objective and multiple-choice; duration 2 hours 15 minutes
- Minimum qualifying marks in prelims: 40% for General, 36.5% for BC, 34% for EBC, and 32% for SC/ST, women and divyang candidates
- Main exam: General Hindi 100, English 100, General Knowledge 200 and one optional subject 200 marks, each paper 3 hours
- The written merit list is made from General Knowledge plus the optional subject; candidates equal to three times the number of vacancies are called for the interview
- Interview: 100 marks; the final merit list adds General Knowledge, the optional paper and the interview marks
- Ties are broken by written marks, th