Civil Service Examination Details

Civil Services Examination (India)

 

  The Civil Services Examination (CSE) is a nationwide competitive examination in India conducted by the Union Public Service Commission for recruitment to various Civil Services of the Government of India, including the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Foreign Service (IFS), Indian Police Service (IPS) among others. Also simply referred as UPSC examination. It is conducted in three phases - a preliminary examination consisting of two objective-type papers (General Studies Paper I and General Studies Paper II also popularly known as Civil Service Aptitude Test or CSAT), and a main examination consisting of nine papers of conventional (essay) type, in which two papers are qualifying and only marks of seven paper are counted followed by a personality test (interview).

Process

    The Civil Services Examination is based on the British Raj Era Imperial Civil Service tests, as well as the civil service tests conducted by old Indian empires such as in the Mauryan Empire and Mughal Empire. The Civil Services Examination is considered to be one of the most difficult competitive examination in India. On an average, 900,000 to 1,000,000 candidates apply every year and the number of candidates appearing to sit the preliminary examination is approximately 500,000. The examination consists of the following stage. Results are published in mid-August.

·         Stage I: Main examination - Held in October every year.

·         Stage II: Personality Test (interview) - held in March each year. Final results are usually announced in May .

  The training program for the selected candidates usually commences the following September.

Eligibility

Eligibility for the examination is as follows:

Nationality

·         For the Indian Administrative Service and the Indian Police Service, the candidate must be a citizen of India.

·         For other services, the candidate must be one of the following:

·         A citizen of India

·         A citizen of Nepal or a subject of Bhutan

·         A person of Indian origin who has migrated from Pakistan, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Malawi, Zaire, Ethiopia or Vietnam with the intention of permanently settling in India

Education

All candidates must have as a minimum one of the following educational qualifications:

·         A degree from a Central, State or a Deemed university

·         A degree received through correspondence or distance education

·         A degree from an open university

·         A qualification recognized by the Government of India as being equivalent to one of the above

The following candidates are also eligible, but must submit proof of their eligibility from a competent authority at their institute/university at the time of the main examination, failing which they will not be allowed to attend the exam.

·         Candidates who have appeared in an examination, the passing of which would render them educationally qualified enough to satisfy one of the above points

·         Candidates who have passed the final exam of the MBBS degree but have not yet completed an internship.

·         Candidates who have passed the final exam of ICAI, ICSI and ICWAI.

·         A degree from a private university.

·         A degree from any foreign university recognized by the Association of Indian Universities.

Age

The candidate must have attained the age of 21 years and must not have attained the age of 32 years (for the General category candidate) on August 1 of the year of examination. Prescribed age limits vary with respect to caste reservations.

·         For Other Backward Castes (OBC) the upper age limit is35

·         For Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST), the limit is 37 years.

·         The upper age limit is relaxed for certain candidates who are backward with respect to other factors and differently abled

Number of attempts

The number of times a candidate may attempt the exam is limited as follows:

·         General category candidates = 6.

·         OBC category candidates = 9.

·         SC/ST candidates = unlimited attempts till 37 years of age.

Appearing to attempt one of the papers in the preliminary examination is counted as an attempt, including disqualification/ cancellation of candidature. However, applying to sit the exam but failing to attend is not counted as an attempt.