Direct Recruitment
Appointment through open competitive examination (the TNPSC route), as opposed to promotion or transfer from existing service.
Direct recruitment is the route every TNPSC aspirant is on: open notification, written exam, merit list, communal rotation, counselling. The other routes into the same posts are promotion and transfer of serving employees, which follow service rules rather than open competition. Reservation, age limits and PSTM all operate on the direct recruitment side of this divide.
Related terms
In-Service Candidate
A current government employee applying for another post, sometimes with earmarked quotas or age concessions, applying through proper channel.
Pay Matrix
The 7th Pay Commission table of pay levels and cells that replaced pay bands and grade pay. Every post maps to a level; annual increments move you cell by cell.
Pay Level
A post's row in the pay matrix, fixing its starting basic pay and progression. Group 4 posts sit around Level 8; Group 1 posts start around Level 22.
Basic Pay
The pay-matrix figure before any allowance. DA and HRA are calculated as percentages of it, and deductions come off the resulting gross.
Grade Pay
The 6th Pay Commission add-on that indicated a post's seniority. Abolished by the 7th CPC and absorbed into pay-matrix levels; older notifications still mention it.
Dearness Allowance (DA)
An inflation-linked allowance calculated as a percentage of basic pay and revised periodically by the government.
This definition follows official TNPSC notifications and Tamil Nadu government orders. Sources: TNPSC official notifications. Figures are indicative and may change with each official notification. Data last reviewed: July 2026.
Unlock the full app, every paper and an AI tutor.
Study, tests, all PYQ & current affairs · no auto-renew · starting at ₹199