An Introduction to the Civil Services Examination

Civil Service Examination (also known as UPSC Exam) is conducted by UPSC (Union Public Service commission) every year. This exam is conducted to recruit the brightest minds of India for the posts of Central Civil Services i.e. Indian Administrative service (IAS), Indian Police service (IPS), Indian Foreign Service (IFS), Indian Revenue Service (IRS), and many more.

UPSC Exams consist of 2 stages:

• Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination (Objective type) for the selection of candidates for the Main Examination.
• Civil Services (Main) Examination (Written and Interview) for the selection of candidates for the various Services.

Process of Examination

1. UPSC releases notification every year to invite applications for the Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination only, about 3 months before the date of examination.
2. Applicants, who clear prelims, are declared qualified for admission to the Civil Services (Mains) Examination (Written) by UPSC.
3. Invited candidates are required to apply online again and submit on-line Detailed Application Form-I [DAF-I] along with scanned documents/certificates in support of date of birth, category and educational qualification with required Examination Fee.
4. The number of candidates invited for mains (Written) every year are almost 12-13 times of the total vacancies that year.
5. After successfully clearing the mains  (Written examination), UPSC will invite the candidates for Personality Tests.
6. The number of candidates invited for interview are almost 2-3 time of total number of vacancies that year.
7. After conduct of Personality Tests, UPSC declares the final marks (Based on written exam and Personality Test).

Note: Marks obtained in the Preliminary exam are not counted in the final results because it serves as a screening test only.

Eligibility Criterion

To be eligible for Civil Service IAS Exam, UPSC has fixed certain conditions:

Nationality:

To apply for the posts of Indian Administrative Service, the Indian Foreign Service and the Indian Police Service, a candidate must be a citizen of India.

Whereas, a person belongs to following categories can apply for rest of the posts:

1. a citizen of India, or
2. a subject of Nepal, or
3. a subject of Bhutan, or
4. a Tibetan refugee who came over to India before 1st January, 1962 with the intention of permanently settling in India, or
5. a person of Indian origin who has migrated from Pakistan, Burma, Sri Lanka, East African countries of Kenya, Uganda, the United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia, Malawi, Zaire, Ethiopia and Vietnam with the intention of permanently settling in India.

For the candidate belonging to categories (b), (c), (d) and (e), a certificate of eligibility from Government of India would be required.

Age:

To Apply for UPSC Exams, a candidate must have attained the age of 21 years and must not have attained the age of 32 years on the 1st of August, 2019 (as per 2019 exam).

However, for certain reserved categories Upper age relaxation have been provided:

• Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe – 5years
• Other Backward Classes - 3 years
• Defence Services Personnel disabled in operations during hostilities – 3 years
• For a certain category of ex-servicemen – 5 years
• Physically disabled – 10 years

Education Qualification:

To be eligible to appear for Civil Service IAS Exam, a candidate must hold a degree of graduation or an equivalent degree or certificate as per government’s norms.

Vacancies and challenges

The perception that UPSC Exam is a tough nut to crack, comes majorly out of the proportion between the vacancies and the number of applications received.

Whereas, the number of vacancies has been reduced over the years (Except in 2019), the number of applications received against these vacancies have increased manifold.

Year	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019
Vacancies	1,364	1,164	1,079	980	782	896
Applications	947428	9,45,908	11,35,943	More than a million	-	-

Above data is enough to tell about the level of competition a candidate might face in the UPSC Exams.

Although, it is also another reality that half of the applied candidates do not appear on the exam centres and among those who appear, half might be the candidates, who didn’t take the IAS Exams Preparation seriously.

It is important to note that a huge part of applications comes from the students, who are among the brightest in the country with the backgrounds like IITs, IIMs, MBBS and Scientists. But it doesn’t make this exam a league of elites, because every year selection from lower rungs of society has proved that talent is not dependent upon any premier institutional training and hard work cannot be replaced by anything.

Thus, for a candidate who is looking to grab this opportunity, it is necessary that her/his IAS Exams preparation should be well planned and executed, to crack this exam. It will only help in standing out of the crowd of millions.