Bihar FSO official syllabus guide
Bihar FSO syllabus 2026
BTSC selects Bihar's Food Safety Officers through one written Computer Based Test. Its syllabus has two parts: General Studies & Mental Ability for 25 marks, and Chemistry and Food Nutrition for 75 marks, made up of food chemistry, food microbiology and food processing technology. BTSC does not split the 75 marks among those three; our mocks give each of them 25 questions.
Exam pattern and marking
- 100 questions, all objective multiple choice, in both Hindi and English; 2 hours; 100 marks.
- +1 for each correct answer and −0.25 for each wrong answer.
- Held as a Computer Based Test, possibly in more than one shift, with results normalised across shifts.
- Minimum qualifying marks: General 40%, BC 36.5%, EBC 34%, SC/ST/women/PwD 32%. Candidates domiciled outside Bihar need the general 40%.
Paraphrased from BTSC's syllabus and advertisement. The syllabus does not divide Part 2's 75 marks among food chemistry, food microbiology and food processing technology; the equal split in our mocks is our assumption. Packaging, food law (the FSS Act and its regulations) and computer awareness are not in BTSC's syllabus for this test.
100-question CBT: General Studies & Mental Ability (25) and Chemistry and Food Nutrition (75) syllabus
Part 1: General Studies & Mental Ability (25 marks)
10 topics- Events of national and international importance; current affairs: international, national and regional
- General science and its applications to day-to-day life; contemporary developments in science & technology and information technology
- Social-economic and political history of modern India
- Indian polity and governance: constitutional issues, public reforms and e-government initiatives
- Economic development in India since independence
- Physical geography of the Indian sub-continent and Bihar
- Disaster management: vulnerability profile, prevention and mitigation strategies, remote sensing and GIS in disaster assessment
- Sustainable development and environmental protection
- Logical reasoning, analytical ability and data interpretation
- Data analysis: tabulation of data; summary statistics (mean, median, mode, variance, coefficient of variation) and interpretation
Part 2A: Food Chemistry
6 topics- Carbohydrates: structure and functional properties of mono-, di-, oligo- and polysaccharides, including starch, cellulose, pectic substances and dietary fibre
- Proteins: classification and structure of food proteins
- Lipids: classification and structure, rancidity of fats, polymerisation and polymorphism
- Pigments: carotenoids, chlorophylls, anthocyanins, tannins and myoglobin
- Food flavours: terpenes, esters, ketones and quinones
- Enzymes; enzymatic and non-enzymatic browning in different foods
Part 2B: Food Microbiology
7 topics- Characteristics of microorganisms: morphology, structure and detection of bacteria, yeasts and moulds in food; spores and vegetative cells
- Microbial growth in food: intrinsic and extrinsic factors, growth and death kinetics, serial dilution for quantification
- Food spoilage: contributing factors, spoilage bacteria, spoilage of milk and milk products, meat and meat products
- Foodborne disease: toxins of Staphylococcus, Clostridium and Aspergillus; pathogens Salmonella, Bacillus, Listeria, Escherichia coli, Shigella and Campylobacter
- Food hazards of natural origin: seafood toxins, biogenic amines, alkaloids, phenolic compounds, protease inhibitors and phytates
- Types of hazard (biological, chemical, physical), factors affecting safety and the importance of safe food
- General methods of food preservation and processing to prevent spoilage
Part 2C: Food Processing Technology
8 topics- Structure, composition, nutritional significance and processing of each food group
- Cereals: rice milling and parboiling; barley pearling, malting and brewing; corn wet and dry milling; wheat milling
- Pulses (milling, germination, cooking, roasting, frying, canning, fermentation) and oilseeds (extraction and refining)
- Fruits, IQF and thawing; plantation crops: primary and secondary processing of tea, coffee and cocoa; spices: oleoresin and essential-oil extraction
- Meat, fish and poultry: ante-mortem inspection, slaughtering and dressing, post-mortem examination, canning, curing, smoking, freezing, dehydration
- Milk: receiving, separation, clarification, pasteurisation, standardisation, homogenisation, sterilisation, UHT
- Unit operations: grading, sorting, peeling and size reduction
- Product development: consumer trends, generating and evaluating ideas, developing products, test marketing and commercialisation; raw-material selection, sensory and objective evaluation, standardisation
Source: BTSC FSO syllabus (Oct 2026) ↗. Source: BTSC Advertisement No. 29/2026 ↗. Checked 2026-10-15.
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