NDA Application Forms: Formatting the 350x350 Square Documents

1. The 350x350 Square Pixel Mandate

Unlike standard recruitment portals that request a rectangular passport photo, the UPSC requires both your photograph and your signature to be perfectly geometric squares. Specifically, the dimensions must be exactly 350 pixels wide by 350 pixels high.

If you stretch a rectangular passport photo to fit this square box, your face will become horizontally distorted. The AI screening tool will flag this distortion and reject your application. You must crop your original image into a 1:1 square ratio before resizing it. The final file size must remain between 20 KB and 300 KB.

2. The Name and Date (DOP) Stamp

Recent UPSC directives have mandated that all NDA candidate photographs must feature a text stamp. The candidate's full name and the exact date the photograph was taken (DOP) must be superimposed at the bottom of the image. This date cannot be older than 10 days from the release of the NDA notification.

Use a professional photo stamper tool to apply a clean black strip with white text. Hand-typing this on mobile apps often degrades the image quality, leading to rejection.

3. The Square Signature Rule

Your signature must also be uploaded as a 350x350 pixel square, bounded between 20 KB and 300 KB. Sign your name broadly in the center of a blank white piece of paper. Do not upload a tiny, thin signature surrounded by massive white space, as it will be unreadable on the attendance sheet.