The Civil Services are the gateway to the executive machinery of central administration in India, comprising of bureaucrats whose work is dedicated towards the service of the people. Every year, the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) conducts the Civil Services examination for appointing candidates at various levels of central government services. The Civil Services are categorized under two broad criteria: All India Services and Central Services.

I. All India Services
a. Indian Administrative Service (IAS)

b. Indian Police Service (IPS)

II. Central Services
a. Indian Audit and Account Service (IAAS)

b. Indian Foreign Service (IFS)

c. Indian Civil Accounts Service (ICAS)

d. Indian Corporate Law Service (ICLS)

e. Indian Defence Accounts Service (IDAS)

f. Indian Defence Estates Services (IDES)

g. Indian Information Service (IIS)

h. Indian Postal Service (IPOS)

i. Indian Communication Finance Service (ICFS)

j) Indian Railway Protection Force Service (RPF)

k) Indian Revenue Service (Customs & Indirect Taxes)

l) Indian Revenue Service (Income Tax)

m) Indian Trade Service (ITS)

n) Armed Forces Headquarters Civil Service

o) Delhi, Andaman and Nicober Islands, Lakshadweep, Daman & Diu and Dadra & Nagar Haveli Civil Services (DANICS)

p) Delhi, Andaman and Nicober Islands, Lakshadweep, Daman & Diu and Dadra & Nagar Haveli Police Services (DANIPS)

q) Pondicherry Civil Service (PONDICS)

N.B.: Civil servants under the All India Services are appointed by the Central Government under the different state cadres; while the ones designated under the Central Services are appointed at the Centre and are directly part of the permanent executive of the country.

The Civil services create an onus on the individual to serve the people either from the field level or from the non-field level. The scope of engagement of a Civil Servant varies from curating works of development to taking minor to major steps at the time of emergency like natural disasters. IAS Officers work at the ground level ensuring that the government schemes are being implemented at the optimal level in the rural areas. IPS Officers crack down criminal syndicates and marinating law and order in the society. Central Service officers like the IFS get the chance to represent Indian at international forums like the UN. Simply put, civil services provide the opportunity to dedicated and responsible individuals to act as bridge between the government and the people, by executing the policies devised by the government for the people. Thus, these bureaucrats form an integral part of the decision making and implementation wing of the federal government.

I. Nationality: For IAS and IPS, a candidate should be mandatorily a citizen of India. However, for the IFOS and the Central Services, individuals having any of the following citizenship status are eligible:
a. An Indian citizen
b. If the candidate is a subject of Nepal
c. If the candidate is a subject of Bhutan
d. A refugee from Tibet, who came to India prior to 01/01/1962 with the motive to become a permanent resident of India,
e. All the persons of Indian Origin, who migrated from Pakistan, Burma, Sri Lanka, East African countries of Kenya, Uganda, Zambia, Malawi, Ethiopia, Zaire and Vietnam; with the intention to settle in India, permanently.

N.B: For candidates falling under the citizenship criteria: (b), (c), (d), ad (e), an issuance certificate from the Government of India is mandatory to be furnished for final appointment, after clearing the examination. Also, it should be noted that the candidates under categories: (b), (c), and (d), are not eligible for recruitment to the Indian Foreign Service.

II. Minimum and Maximum Age Limit: The UPSC has set the minimum age limit for sitting in the Civil service examination at 21 years, while the maximum age limits are set accordingly, as follows:

Various Categories	Age Relaxation	Maximum Age Limit
General	Nil	32 years
Scheduled Castes (SC) & Scheduled Tribes (ST)	Upto 5 years	37 years
Other Backward Classes	Upto 3 years	35 years
Defence Service persons, who were disabled at service	Upto 3 years	35 years
Ex-servicemen (with minimum of 5 years of service in the Military)	Upto 5 years	37 years
Visually challenged/ hearing impaired/physically challenged	Upto 10 years	42 years

III. Minimum Educational Qualification: A candidate applying for the IAS/IPS/IFOS/IFS/IRS, etc. examination should be a graduate from any recognized university of India. Interested candidates, who have appeared in their final year examination, and are awaiting the results, can also appear in the UPSC CSE examination. Also, the candidates who are about to appear in the final year graduation examination are eligible to write the CSE examination; however such candidates should produce their graduation marksheet during the Mains Examination.

UPSC has set the following limits on the number of attempts of the appearing candidates:

Category	No. of Attempts
General	6
OBC	9
SC/ST	No limit
Physically Handicapped (General)	9
Physically Handicapped (OBC)	9
Physically Handicapped (SC/ST)	No limit

Pattern

The CSE is conducted by the UPSC in the following stages:

a.Preliminary Examination: The preliminary examination comprises of two papers: General Studies (GS) and Civil Service Aptitude Test (CSAT). This is the screening examination, upon clearing which the candidates can appear for the Main examination. However, it should be noted that the marks obtained in the preliminary examination are not counted for deciding the final merit of the candidate.

Paper Name	Time Duration	No. of Questions	Total Marks	Nature of Paper
GS Paper I	2 hours	100	200	Marks considered for Preliminary Exam Merit
GS Paper II (CSAT)	2 hours	80	200	Qualifying in nature

b. Main Examination: The IAS Main examination is again split up into parts: Written examination and interview. The Written Examination is again split up in the following parts:
a. English paper (compulsory)
b. Regional language paper (compulsory)
c. General Studies Paper 1 (GS-I)
d. General Studies Paper 2 (GS-II)
e. General Studies Paper 3 (GS-III)
f. General Studies Paper 4 (GS-IV)
g. Optional Paper 1
h. Optional Paper 2

N.B.: Papers (a) and (b) and again of qualifying nature and there marks won’t be counting for calculating the final merit of the candidate. The merit of the candidate will hence be decided by the total marks of papers (c) to (h) and the interview.

The CSE intends to test the basic knowledge and understanding of a candidate o the various issues and matters of day to day life that have significant impact on the lives of the people. Although UPSC has not formulated a detailed booklist for the coveted CSE, some conventional books are perceived as the basic sources of information and knowledge required to crack the examination. A generalized booklist is given below:

Indian Polity by M.Lakshmikant

Geography
>> Class XI NCERT on Indian Geography
>> Class XII NCERT on World Geography

Indian History
>> Class XI NCERT on Ancient History by R.S.Sharma
>> Class XI NCERT on Medieval History by Satish Chandra
>> Class XII NCERT on Modern History by Bipin Chandra

Economics:
>> Class XI NCERT
>> Class XII NCERT

Current Affairs
>> Newspapers: The Indian Express, The Hindu
>> Magazines: Yojana, Kurukshetra

UPSC publishes the notification for the Civil Services Examination for recruitment in posts like IAS/IPS/IFS/IRS, etc. in the month of February, For example, the notification for UPSC CSE 2020 will be out in the month of February 2020. The UPSC CSE 2020 preliminary examination will be held on 31st of May, 2020. The tentative dates of the complete schedule of the examination are presented below in a tabular form:

Stages of UPSC CSE 2020	Tentative dates
Publication of Notification	February, 2020
Preliminary Examination	31st May, 2020
Result of Preliminary Examination	End of July, 2020 or early August, 2020
Main Examination	20th September, 2020
Result of Main Examination	End of December, 2020 or 1st week of January, 2021
Interview	February, March and April, 2021
Publication of Final Merit List	April/May, 2021

UPSC has provided the following list of subjects for the candidates to choose as their optional subjects. Choosing of the optional is completely at the discretion of the candidate and hence this subject should be wisely chosen as it creates a significant impact on the final marks of the merit list.

Candidates can choose any one of the following subjects:
01. Agriculture
02. Animal Husbandry & Veterinary Science
03. Anthropology
04. Botany
05. Chemistry
06. Civil Engg
07. Commerce & Acc
08. Economics
09. Electrical Engg
10. Geography
11. Geology
12. History
13. Law
14. Management
15. Mathematics
16. Mechanical Engg
17. Medical Science
18. Philosophy
19. Physics
20. Political Science & IR
21. Psychology
22. Public Administration
23. Sociology
24. Statistics
25. Zoology
26. Literature

Literature of any one of the following language (30) is also offered as an optional subject:
01. Arabic
02. Assamese
03. Bodo
04. Bengali
05. Chinese
06. Dogri
07. English
08. French
09. German
10. Gujarati
11. Hindi
12. Kannada
13. Kashmiri
14. Konkani
15. Maithili
16. Malayalam
17. Manipuri
18. Marathi
19. Nepali
20. Oriya
21. Pali
22. Persian
23. Punjabi
24. Russian
25. Sanskrit
26. Santali
27. Sindhi
28. Tamil
29. Telugu
30. Urdu