Loksewa Tayari: How to Prepare for Nepal's Public Service Commission Exams

26 September 2026 · 7 min read

"Loksewa" is the everyday name for the exams run by the Public Service Commission — Lok Sewa Aayog — the body that recruits Nepal's civil servants. A lot of loksewa tayari goes into guessing what will be asked, built on photocopied notes passed between batches, when the Commission itself publishes what each post's exam actually covers. Start there, not with a generic guidebook.

What the Public Service Commission actually is

The Public Service Commission is a constitutional body, established in 2007 BS (1951), headed by a chairman and four members appointed on the recommendation of the Constitutional Council. Its job is to select candidates for government vacancies through a competitive, examination-based process rather than direct appointment. It is headquartered at Kamalpokhari, Kathmandu, with regional offices around the country.

The exam is written in stages, not one paper

For non-gazetted posts — Kharidar, Nayab Subba and similar — the written exam runs as a First Paper (पहिलो पत्र), covering general knowledge and mental ability, and a Second Paper (दोस्रो पत्र), covering subject matter specific to the post applied for. Candidates need to clear the First Paper for the Second Paper to be considered, and First Paper marks typically carry forward into the final result rather than being discarded once you pass. Several gazetted-level services add a Third Paper on top of the first two. Which of this applies to you, and in what proportion, depends on the exact post and service — engineering services, for instance, follow the same first-paper/second-paper pattern but with their own subject content.

Read your own post's syllabus before anyone else's notes

The Commission publishes syllabus documents by post at psc.gov.np, organised by position name — Kharidar, Nayab Subba, Section Officer and the specific technical services all have their own listed First Paper and Second Paper syllabus. Before you buy a guidebook or join a batch class built around "general loksewa" content, find your exact post there and read what it actually asks for. A neighbour's Nayab Subba notes will not match a Kharidar paper, and an administrative post's syllabus will not match an engineering service's.

A realistic way to structure your months

First few weeks: map the published syllabus for your exact post against what you already know, and sit one old question paper cold to see where you actually stand — not to pass it, just to find the gaps.
Middle stretch, First Paper: build general knowledge and mental ability as a daily habit — current affairs, constitutional and administrative basics, reasoning practice — rather than a week of cramming before the date.
Middle stretch, Second Paper: go back to your own degree textbooks and departmental notes. The Second Paper tests subject knowledge from the qualification you already hold, not a separate loksewa curriculum invented on top of it.
Final weeks: solve previous years' question papers for your specific post under timed conditions, and keep the current-affairs review running daily rather than stopping it once you move to subject revision.

Mistakes that cost marks more often than knowledge gaps do

Preparing entirely from compiled "guess" notes without checking them against the Commission's own published syllabus for the post.
Under-preparing the First Paper because "everyone passes it" — where marks carry forward, a weak First Paper score can sink a strong Second Paper.
Leaving the Second Paper — the one that usually decides the result — to the last few weeks.
Never practising under exam time pressure, so the first time you write at speed is the exam itself.

If you're preparing for an engineering service specifically, two things worth reading alongside this:

Loksewa Second Paper: how to prepare the subject-specific exam — Answer-writing technique and how to revise from your own degree material
NEC license exam preparation guide — Engineering-service applicants are often also required to hold NEC registration to be eligible

We are an academic writing and study-support service based in Kathmandu, not a loksewa coaching centre — but if you want a second pair of eyes turning scattered notes into a structured Second Paper revision plan, message us on WhatsApp and we'll tell you plainly whether it's something we can help with.