IAS Officer

To become an IAS officer, one has to appear for the Indian Civil Service Examinations. The primary requirement for this is that the aspirant should be holding a bachelor’s degree (any field). Even those with a professional degree like doctors and engineers can also appear for the exam. The second criterion is that they should be in the age group of twenty one to thirty years. This is relaxed for those from the reserved category. The third criterion is that the person should be an Indian National. There is an underlying clause on the number of attempts allowed. The one’s that are belonging to the general category can attempt 4 times, OBCs 7 times and the SC/STs unlimited attempts.

Little bit about the exam:

The Union Public Service Commission is the authority, which conducts the civil services exams annually. The examinations is conducted for Indian Administrative Services, Indian Foreign Services, Indian Police Services, Indian Revenue serivces, Indian Information services etc. in 2018 the exam is proposed for 782 vacancies in all.  The exam is divided into two parts A preliminary exam and A main exam followed by an interview.

The preliminary exam polpularly called asPrelims is held in June. The marks obtained in the exam are meant to serve as a screening test and are NOT counted to determine the final order of merit. The preliminary exam has got 2 papers and carries 400 marks. Both question papers are objective type. General Studies paper II is the qualifying paper with 33% marks. The question papers are both in English and Hindi. Paper 1 is of 200 marks and it has got 100 questions from History, political science, geography, science, economics, and a lot of other topics. Pape 2 is also of 200 marks and it comprises of 80 questions of reasoning, quantitative aptitude and problem solving.

In May 2015 the Civil services examination rules have been amended and now CSAT is only a qualifying paper and the bar is as low as 33 % and the aspirants will be graded for merit on the basis on General Studies Paper 1.

Then comes the Main Test which is Civil services mains examnination. The exam is held in September . This is a written examination and  has English Paper of 300 marks, Hindi / Indian Language of 300 marks, 4 papers of general studies 250 marks each and two papers in the chosen subject.

The third stage is  the interview. Another important thing is that the scores of Main Test and interview are used to calculate the final rank. A medical test concludes the process of selection.

Most of those aspiring to join the IAS study vigorously, usually devoting their full time to it, many quit their jobs to study full time for this exam. There are no official or government approved institutes or colleges, which one can join for training for the exam.