About Civil Services: An Overview

A country as vast and thickly populated as India needs a well-organized government machinery for proper governance. There are two facets to the administration of a country. One is security for which the country has its defence services and the other is the non-military part, which is taken care of by the Civil Services. The Indian civil service system is one of the oldest civil service systems in the world. It is backbone of the administrative machinery of the Indian nation and constitutes all the major departments which run the state & central administration. India which is a union of states has a democratic system. The Indian Administrative Service (IAS) is the highest cadre of the civil services in India and is the successor to the erstwhile Indian (Imperial) Civil Service of British India. The political system of the country is pluralistic, having three tiers of administration, namely, central, district and divisional (local). Work at the central level involves the framing and implementation of policies. The functions of the IAS at the district level encompass all district affairs with special emphasis on development. General administration and development work is the responsibility of the IAS at the divisional level. We can trace the origin of civil service from ancient period, it had its origin in the Mauryan period during ancient India (200 BC - 1000 AD. In medieval India (1000-1600 AD), the Moghals Akbar the Great founded and nurtured the civil service, which centred on the management of land revenue, administration of government factories, and establishment of the welfare state. The British government set up the Indian civil service Steel Frame of Indian Administration, primarily with the objective to collect the revenue and maintain Law and Order. In 1947, free-India inherited the Indian Civil service.

The Civil Services examination is one of the most prestigious examinations conducted by UPSC. Historically it has been of the most sought after career by young and talented individuals. It has not lost its prestige value amidst the recent popularity of IT and management careers. Civil Services is also popularly known as the IAS exam or the UPSC exam and is considered one the toughest competitive exams in the world with success rate of just 0.1%.

The appointment in civil services offers executive power. Promotions are time bound and increase in privileges is automatic. Selected candidates are first put through a training session for a short period. He is usually sent to an academic staff college associated with the service to which he is allocated. The Government of India has fixed salary grades for Civil Servants.

Much of the work is administrative in nature and involves planning, resource management, policy formulation, implementation of policies and programmes, supervision and monitoring. There is considerable interaction with people at all levels. Responsible decision making is a vital aspect of the job as your action impacts the lives of lakhs of people. Perhaps the most appealing factor is that at a young age you are given tremendous responsibility. What is more you are exposed to a wide spectrum of issues from law and order to poverty alleviation.

However, Indian civil service system also reflects the characteristic of representativeness in multifarious ways. The examination is supposed to extend equal opportunity to all candidates for selection regardless of academic specialization, residence in rural or urban areas, sex, religion or caste community. Though reservation of 15 per cent of vacancies for Scheduled Castes and 7.5 per cent for Scheduled Tribes, 27% for the OBC candidate along with some concessions, is permitted as part of the national policy for protective discrimination. There are also reservations for handicapped people and who are economically and socially depressed. Altogether, 49% of the total seats for the recruitment to the IAS and the central services are reserved for these sections of the society. These have also been given a privilege in terms of reservation of seats for entering into the civil services. A section of society who have for one or the other reason have not shared the fruits of development, and to bring them on equal footing they have been accorded the privilege of reservations in the entry to the civil services. There is no bar of persons belonging to different regions, castes, and creed to join the civil services. There is no gender discrimination. There is no bias for people with a particular educational background which could facilitate their entry to the civil services. However, to enter the Indian civil service, one has to have a minimum age of 21 years and a maximum age of 30 years. One cannot make more than four attempts.