IOCL Pipeline Apprentice Recruitment 2026: 500 Posts, Apply Online Till 5 Dec – No Exam, Merit List Only

The Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL), Pipelines Division, has released Advertisement No. PL/HR/ESTB/APPR (2026), dated 6 November 2026, for the IOCL Pipeline Apprentice Recruitment 2026. Through this notification, around 500 Apprentices will be engaged in technical and non-technical trades at pipeline locations across India under the Apprentices Act, 1961. Applications opened on 6 November 2026 and the last date to apply is 5 December 2026 — and that deadline applies to both portals, not just one. There is no written test and no interview in this recruitment. Selection is purely on a merit list prepared from the percentage of marks in your qualifying examination, followed by document verification and a medical fitness check. Training lasts 12 months. Every detail below is taken from the official notification published on iocl.com. Candidates who are also tracking other apprentice and PSU openings can browse our Latest Jobs section for daily updates.

The one thing most candidates get wrong. This is a two-portal application. You first apply for the opportunity on the NATS or NAPS portal, and only after that do you register on the IOCL Pipelines portal. Skipping either step, or doing them in the wrong order, means your application does not count. The full sequence is explained step by step further down.

IOCL Pipeline Apprentice Recruitment 2026 – Overview

IOCL Pipeline Apprentice Recruitment 2026 – Important Dates

Both deadlines fall on the same day, 5 December 2026. Do not leave the NAPS or NATS step for the last day and assume the IOCL portal registration can follow later — it cannot. The notification is clear that you must apply for the opportunity on the respective NAPS/NATS portal before you register on the IOCL Pipelines portal.

IOCL Pipeline Apprentice Vacancy 2026 – Region-Wise and State-Wise Details

The 500 seats are spread across five pipeline regions, and the Western Region Pipelines (WRPL) with 149 seats and the Eastern Region Pipelines (ERPL) with 116 seats hold the largest share. Odisha alone accounts for 49 seats and Gujarat for 83, the two biggest state totals in the notification. The full break-up from the official advertisement (the notification calls these tentative seats, so the count may increase or decrease):

State-wise and location-wise seats. This is the table most job sites skip, and it is the one that actually matters, because apprenticeship training happens at a specific location, not in a region in the abstract. Check your state and the locations in it before you choose a region and trade.

No trade-wise seat split exists. The notification distributes seats only by region, state and location. It does not say how many of the 500 seats belong to Mechanical, Electrical, Human Resource, Accountant or Data Entry Operator trades. Any website showing an exact or approximate trade-wise break-up for this notification is guessing — do not plan your application around those numbers. The seven trades open under this notification are Technician Apprentice (Mechanical), Technician Apprentice (Electrical), Technician Apprentice (Telecommunication & Instrumentation), Trade Apprentice (Assistant-Human Resource), Trade Apprentice (Accountant), Data Entry Operator (Fresher Apprentices) and Domestic Data Entry Operator (Skill Certificate Holders). You pick one trade, based on your qualification, at the time of application.

Category-wise reservation. Reservation of seats for SC, ST, OBC (Non-Creamy Layer), PwBD and Economically Weaker Section (EWS) candidates follows the applicable government guidelines, as stated in the notification. The seats are also identified as suitable for Persons with Benchmark Disabilities (minimum 40% disability) trade by trade — for example, the Data Entry Operator trades are identified for Hard of Hearing and specified musculoskeletal categories, and the Assistant-Human Resource trade includes Low Vision. The disability certificate must be in Form V, VI or VII under the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Rules, 2017, and the format is available in the Downloads section of the IOCL Pipelines portal.

IOCL Pipeline Apprentice Eligibility Criteria 2026

Age limit. Minimum 18 years and maximum 24 years as on 30 November 2026, which is the date for reckoning every eligibility condition in this notification. Relaxation in the upper age limit is 5 years for SC and ST candidates and 3 years for OBC (Non-Creamy Layer) candidates against reserved positions, so the effective maximum is 27 years for OBC (NCL) and 29 years for SC/ST. PwBD candidates get 10 years of relaxation irrespective of whether the post is reserved for them, with a further 5 years for PwBD candidates from SC/ST categories and a further 3 years for PwBD-OBC (NCL) candidates — taking the maximum to 34 years for PwBD (UR/EWS), 37 years for PwBD-OBC (NCL) and 39 years for PwBD-SC/ST. Only the Class 10 (Matriculation) certificate or mark sheet counts as proof of date of birth at document verification; no other document is accepted for that purpose.

Common conditions. Read these before the trade table, because they knock out more applications than the qualification itself: (1) You must have already passed the prescribed qualification on or before 30 November 2026 — candidates whose result is awaited on that date are not eligible. (2) For Diploma and Graduate trades, the qualification must be a regular full-time course from a recognised institute or university with at least 50% marks in aggregate; the minimum is 45% for SC, ST and PwBD candidates applying against posts reserved for them. (3) Qualifications acquired through part-time, correspondence or distance education are not accepted. (4) Candidates holding higher professional qualifications — BE/B.Tech, MBA, CA, LLB, MCA or any equivalent — are not eligible, and neither is a candidate who is pursuing a higher qualification and completes it on or before joining the training. Hiding the fact that you hold or are pursuing a higher qualification can get you removed at any stage, even after engagement.

Trade-wise qualification. Each trade maps to exactly one qualification family, and picking a trade your qualification does not match is the most common reason for rejection.

Three disqualification traps. First, a candidate who has already undergone apprenticeship training earlier, or is currently pursuing apprenticeship training under the Apprentices Act, is not eligible. Second, candidates who have undergone training or held a job for one year or more after attaining the qualification are not eligible. Third, candidates who completed five years after acquiring the prescribed qualification as on 30 November 2026 are not eligible. Together these rules mean this intake is aimed at recent pass-outs — if you finished your Diploma or degree more than five years ago, or you worked for a year after qualifying, this notification is not for you, however strong your marks are.

Who can apply. Applications are invited from eligible Indian Nationals. Note the wording on the Data Entry Operator trades: the qualification is 12th pass but below Graduate, so a graduate cannot apply for a DEO seat. OBC candidates should also note that only communities in the Central List of OBCs for the respective state count as OBC (NCL) for this Central PSU engagement, and the OBC-NCL certificate must not be more than 12 months old from 30 November 2026. Candidates from the creamy layer get no OBC benefit; they may apply as UR if they meet the UR age criteria.

IOCL Pipeline Apprentice Application Fee 2026

What the notification actually says. Advertisement No. PL/HR/ESTB/APPR (2026) does not prescribe any application fee for any category. The entire application runs on the government NAPS and NATS portals and on IOCL’s own Pipelines portal, and none of those steps carries a fee under this notification. If any website or agent asks you to pay money to apply for this apprenticeship, that demand does not come from IOCL.

How to Apply for IOCL Pipeline Apprentice Recruitment 2026

Step 1 — Apply on the NAPS or NATS portal first. Which portal you use depends on your trade. Data Entry Operator (Fresher Apprentices) and Domestic Data Entry Operator (Skill Certificate Holders) candidates register and apply on the NAPS portal at apprenticeshipindia.gov.in. Technician Apprentice candidates (Mechanical, Electrical, Telecommunication & Instrumentation) and Trade Apprentice candidates (Assistant-Human Resource and Accountant) register and apply on the NATS portal at nats.education.gov.in. After logging in, apply for the apprenticeship opportunity using the Establishment ID of Indian Oil Corporation Limited for your region, from the table below. Before you apply against an opportunity, check that your profile — personal details, educational details, category and aggregate percentage — appears correctly in the portal. IOCL cannot correct portal data; for any correction you must contact the NAPS or NATS office. The NAPS/NATS window runs from 6 November 2026 to 5 December 2026.

Step 2 — Register on the IOCL Pipelines portal. Only after the NAPS/NATS application, complete your registration on the Indian Oil Pipelines portal at plapps.indianoilpipelines.in, again between 6 November 2026 and 5 December 2026. Use the same email ID and mobile number that you used on the NAPS/NATS portal — it must remain valid for the entire apprenticeship period.

1. Open plapps.indianoilpipelines.in and start Part-I registration: fill in basic details such as name and category, and create your own password.
2. On successful Part-I registration, a system-generated registration number is sent to your registered email ID and by SMS. Save it along with your password.
3. Log in again with the registration number and password to begin Part-II registration.
4. Keep a scanned colour photograph (between 20 and 50 KB, JPG format) and a signature in black ink (between 10 and 30 KB, JPG format) ready, and upload both.
5. Furnish your educational qualification and experience details, and enter your NAPS/NATS registration or enrolment number — this field links your two applications.
6. Check every detail carefully and submit. Part-II submission is final; no detail can be changed after it.
7. Take a printout of the filled-in online application and keep it for document verification and future reference.

One application only. You can apply for one Trade Code only. Applying for more than one Trade Code gets all your applications summarily rejected. Only one mobile number and one email ID can be used by a candidate, and the same mobile number or email ID cannot be used by any other candidate for this notification. No mode of application other than the two online steps above is accepted, and incomplete applications or applications received after 5 December 2026 are treated as rejected.

IOCL Pipeline Apprentice Selection Process 2026

Stage 1 – Panel cum Merit List on marks. There is no written test and no personal interview in this recruitment — the notification states this in plain words. For each post, a Panel cum Merit List is prepared of all candidates who applied on the portal and meet the eligibility criteria, arranged in descending order of the percentage of marks obtained in the essential qualification for the trade applied for. The percentage is the aggregate of marks of all subjects of all years or semesters, not just the final year. Your rank is therefore decided entirely by the marks already on your Diploma, degree or Class 12 record — nothing you do after applying can improve it, which is exactly why the percentage you enter in the portal must match your mark sheets.

The CGPA trap. If your result is in CGPA, OGPA or Letter Grade, you must enter the equivalent aggregate percentage as per the norms of your Board, University or Institute, upload the conversion certificate, and produce it at document verification. If you cannot produce it, your candidature will not be considered. If your Board or Institute follows no conversion formula at all, you still need a certificate saying so; in that case the equivalent percentage is worked out from the aggregate grade score divided by the total number of semesters or years. For Letter Grades, a certificate specifying the equivalent percentage is compulsory. Sort this certificate out while you apply, not after the merit list is out.

Tie-breaking rule. If two candidates have the same percentage in the qualifying examination, the older candidate — the one with the earlier date of birth — ranks higher. If the date of birth is also the same, the candidate with the higher percentage of marks in Matriculation ranks higher.

Stage 2 – Document verification and medical fitness. The list of candidates provisionally selected for document verification and medical fitness is published on the IOCL website. Shortlisted candidates receive a link on their registered email and must submit their preference for the Place of Document Verification and three preferences for the Place of Apprenticeship Training in the applied State. The training place is allotted on merit, so a higher rank also means a better chance of getting a preferred location. At verification you must carry the originals and one self-attested copy of each of these: Class 10 certificate or mark sheet as proof of date of birth; latest caste or EWS certificate in the prescribed government format, if applicable; semester-wise and year-wise mark sheets of ITI, HSC, Graduation or Diploma; the final ITI, HSC, Graduation or Diploma certificate; the first page of the bank passbook of an Aadhaar-seeded account, Aadhaar Card, PAN Card and a cancelled cheque leaf; and the Pre-Engagement Medical Fitness Certificate. IOCL also advises candidates to read its Guidelines and Criteria for Physical Fitness for Pre-Engagement Medical Examination, available in the Downloads section of the Pipelines portal, before applying. The Offer of Engagement is issued only to candidates whose documents, including the medical fitness certificate, are found in order. If reserved EWS seats cannot be filled from EWS candidates, they may be filled by unreserved category candidates from the same merit list.

IOCL Pipeline Apprentice Stipend 2026

The notification fixes the stipend by rule, not by amount. It states that the rate of stipend payable to apprentices per month shall be as prescribed under the Apprentices Act, 1961/1973, the Apprentices Rules 1992/2019 as amended from time to time, and the Corporation’s guidelines. No monthly stipend figure is published anywhere in Advertisement No. PL/HR/ESTB/APPR (2026), so the exact amount for your trade will be governed by the rate in force under those rules when you are engaged. Fixed stipend amounts shown on unofficial websites for this notification are not taken from the official document and should not be treated as promised pay. One cost is stated clearly, though: during the apprenticeship period, apart from the monthly stipend, no other monetary or non-monetary benefit or facility — accommodation, HRA, conveyance or medical facility — is admissible. You arrange your own stay and travel near the training location. Finally, be clear about what this engagement is: it is 12 months of apprenticeship training under the Apprentices Act. On completion, IOCL has no obligation to offer you employment, and completing the training gives no right to claim a job in the Corporation.

Important Links

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

How many vacancies are there in IOCL Pipeline Apprentice Recruitment 2026?

There are around 500 apprentice seats under Advertisement No. PL/HR/ESTB/APPR (2026). The official region-wise table totals exactly 500 seats: Western Region Pipelines 149, Eastern Region Pipelines 116, Northern Region Pipelines 110, South Eastern Region Pipelines 79 and Southern Region Pipelines 46. The notification gives seats by region, state and location only, and does not publish a trade-wise split.

What is the last date to apply for IOCL Pipeline Apprentice 2026?

The last date is 5 December 2026. Applications opened on 6 November 2026, and the same closing date applies to both steps: the application on the NATS or NAPS portal and the registration on the IOCL Pipelines portal at plapps.indianoilpipelines.in. An application completed on only one of the two portals is not valid.

Is there any written exam for IOCL Pipeline Apprentice Recruitment 2026?

No. The notification clearly states that there shall be no written test or personal interview. Selection is made through a Panel cum Merit List based on the percentage of marks in the essential qualification, followed by document verification and a medical fitness check.

What is the age limit for IOCL Pipeline Apprentice 2026?

The age limit is minimum 18 years and maximum 24 years as on 30 November 2026 for unreserved candidates. Upper age relaxation is 5 years for SC and ST candidates and 3 years for OBC (Non-Creamy Layer) candidates against reserved positions. PwBD candidates get 10 years of relaxation, with a further 5 years for PwBD-SC/ST and 3 years for PwBD-OBC (NCL) candidates.

What is the qualification for IOCL Technician Apprentice and Data Entry Operator posts?

Technician Apprentice posts need a three-year full-time Diploma in the relevant engineering discipline, such as Mechanical, Automobile, Electrical, or Electronics and Instrumentation branches, from a Government recognised institute. Data Entry Operator (Fresher) needs a minimum 12th pass but below Graduate, while Domestic Data Entry Operator also needs a recognised skill certificate in Domestic Data Entry Operator along with 12th pass.

What is the application fee for IOCL Pipeline Apprentice Recruitment 2026?

The official notification does not prescribe any application fee for any category. The application is completed free of cost on the NATS or NAPS portal and then on the IOCL Pipelines portal. Any demand for payment to apply for this apprenticeship does not come from IOCL.

How is the merit list prepared for IOCL Pipeline Apprentice selection?

The Panel cum Merit List is prepared in descending order of the percentage of marks in the essential qualification for the trade applied for, taking the aggregate of all subjects of all years or semesters. If marks are equal, the older candidate ranks higher, and if the date of birth is also the same, the candidate with higher Matriculation marks ranks higher. Candidates with CGPA or Letter Grades must produce a conversion certificate at document verification.

Do I need to apply on both the NATS or NAPS portal and the IOCL portal?

Yes, both steps are compulsory and the order matters. You must first apply for the opportunity on the NATS portal (Technician Apprentice and Trade Apprentice HR or Accountant) or the NAPS portal (Data Entry Operator trades) using the Establishment ID of your region, between 6 November 2026 and 5 December 2026. Only after that should you register on the IOCL Pipelines portal and enter your NATS or NAPS enrolment number there.

What stipend will IOCL Pipeline Apprentices get?

The notification does not publish a fixed monthly stipend amount. It states only that the stipend shall be as prescribed under the Apprentices Act, 1961/1973, the Apprentices Rules 1992/2019 as amended from time to time, and the Corporation guidelines. No other benefit such as accommodation, HRA, conveyance or medical facility is admissible during the 12-month training period.

Can I apply for more than one trade in IOCL Pipeline Apprentice 2026?

No. A candidate can apply for one Trade Code only, and applying for more than one Trade Code leads to summary rejection of all the applications. Only one mobile number and one email ID can be used by a candidate, and the same mobile number or email ID cannot be used by any other candidate for this notification.

For more government jobs and daily updates, browse the Latest Jobs section of New Sarkari Results, and always verify the final details in the official Advertisement No. PL/HR/ESTB/APPR (2026) on iocl.com before applying.

Written by Ravi Singh

Ravi Singh is the Editor (Government Jobs) at New Sarkari Results, an independent information portal for Sarkari Result, Sarkari Naukri, admit card, answer key, syllabus and admission updates. He has 10+ years of experience covering Government Jobs, Railway Jobs, SSC, Banking, Teaching, Police, Defence and state recruitment boards. Every update on this site is verified directly from the official notification PDF issued by the commission or board — never from third-party aggregators.