Functions and Designations of the civil servant

A civil servant is responsible for the law and order and general administration in the area under his work. Typically the functions of an IAS officer are as follows :

• To handle the daily affairs of the government, including framing and implementation of policy in consultation with the minister-in-charge of the concerned ministry.
  • Implementation of policy requires supervision.
  • Implementation requires traveling to places where the policies are being implemented.
  • Implementation also includes expenditure of public funds which again requires personal supervision as the officers are answerable to the Parliament and State Legislature for any irregularities that may occur.
• In the process of policy formulation and decision making, officers at various levels like joint secretary, deputy secretary make their contributions and the final shape to the policy is given or a final decision is taken with the concurrence of the minister concerned or the cabinet depending upon the gravity the issue.

Most IAS officers start their careers in the state administration at the sub-divisional level as a sub divisional magistrate. They are entrusted with the law and order situation of the city along with general administration and development work of the ares under their charge. The post of District Officer is also known as District Magistrate, District Collector or Deputy Commissioner. Since it is the most identifiable position in the IAS services, it is also considered the most prestigious. At the top of the hierarchy of IAS officers at the Center is the Cabinet Secretary followed by Secretary/Additional Secretary, Joint Secretary, Director, Deputy Secretary and Under Secretary. These posts are filled according to seniority.

The time scale of the officers of the Indian Administrative Service:

	Position in the Government of India	Level and Rank	Order of Precedence (As per Presidential order)
1	Junior Time Scale	Entry-level	--
2	Senior Time Scale	Under Secretary to Government of India (Equivalent to)	--
3	Junior Administrative Grade	Deputy Secretary to Government of India	--
4	Selection Grade	Director to Government of India	--
5	Joint Secretary	Joint Secretary to Government of India	26
6	Additional Secretary	Additional Secretary to Government of India	25
7	Secretary	Secretary to Government of India (The highest rank in a department)	23
8	Cabinet Secretary	Cabinet Secretary to Government of India (only one) (Ex-Officio and Chairman of the Civil Services Board of the Republic of India; the chief of the IAS and head of all civil services under the rules of business of the government of India)	11

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Allocation and Placement

After being selected for the IAS, candidates are allocated to "cadres." There is one cadre in each Indian state, except for three joint cadres: Assam–Meghalaya, Manipur–Tripura, and Arunachal Pradesh–Goa–Mizoram–Union Territories (AGMUT).

The "insider-outsider ratio" (ratio of officers who are posted in their home states) is maintained as 1:2. as 'insiders'. The rest are posted as 'outsiders' according to the 'roster' in states other than their home states. Till 2008 there was no choice for any state cadre and the candidates, if not placed in the insider vacancy of their home states, were allotted to different states in alphabetic order of the roster, beginning with the letters A,H,M,T for that particular year. For example if in a particular year the roster begins from 'A', which means the first candidate in the roster will go to the Andhra Pradesh state cadre of IAS, the next one o Bihar, and subsequently to Chattisgarh, Gujarat and so on in alphabetical order. The next year the roster starts from 'H', for either Haryana or Himachal Pradesh.( if it has started from Haryana in the previous occasion when it all started from 'H', then this time it would start from Himachal Pradesh). This highly intricate system has on one hand ensured that officers from different states are placed all over India, it has also resulted in wide disparities in the kind of professional exposure for officers, when we compare officers in small and big & also developed and backward state, since the system ensures that the officers are permanently placed to one state cadre. The only way the allotted state cadre can be changed is by marriage to an officer of another state cadre of IAS/IPS/IFS. One can even go to his home state cadre on deputation for a limited period, after which one has to invariably return to the cadre allotted to him or her.

The centralizing effect of these measures was considered extremely important by the system's framers, but has received increasing criticism over the years. In his keynote address at the 50th anniversary of the Service in Mussoorie, former Cabinet Secretary Nirmal Mukarji argued that separate central, state and local bureaucracies should eventually replace the IAS as an aid to efficiency. There are also concerns that without such reform, the IAS will be unable to "move from a command and control strategy to a more interactive, interdependent system".

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Entry and Examination

The Civil Services Examination is used for recruitment for many Indian administrative bodies. Civil Service Exam is conducted by Union Public Service Commission.

It has three stages

• Preliminary Exam
• Main exam and   
• Interview            

and is known for being extremely challenging.Recently the preliminary exam pattern has been changed. There used to be 23 optional subjects along with a general studies paper. Now there will be no optional subjects in the preliminary examination. Instead there will be a second paper which will be common for all candidates. It will check the administrative aptitude of candidates-hence its name - the Civil Service Aptitude Test [CSAT].There is so many section in it it's comprises Aptitude, General Mathematics,Comprehensive English etc. Entry into the IAS is considered very difficult; most applicants rank the Indian Administrative Service as their top choices because of the high prestige, salary, and benefits that come with such positions. For example, in the 2005 batch, of the 425 selected candidates, 398 indicated IAS as their first preference, 18 chose IFS and just nine chose IPS. But when it came to second preference, 200 candidates had marked IPS as their choice, while only 155 had marked IFS as their second choice.

Repeated attempts are allowed up to four times for General Merit candidates, seven times for OBC candidates. There is no bar on the number of attempts for SC/ST candidates. The upper age limit to attempt the examination is 35 for SC/ST,33 for OBC and 30 years for the rest. The candidate mustn't be 30 year till 1st August that year. The minimum age is 21 years.

About 850 candidates are finally selected each year out of the nearly 200,000, but only a rank ie top 50-100 guarantees an IAS or IFS selection—an acceptance rate of 0.01 percent, which makes it the most competitive exam in the world.

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Independence of the Civil Service

 India is a democratic country and to run such a vast, incredible and historical country it needs a equally incredible Civil Services. And IAS is the best example. But as you all know that there are three Pillars of a successful democracy and they are:-

• LEGISLATIVE  (Makes Laws)
• EXECUTIVE (Enforces Laws)
• JUDICIARY (Interprets Laws)

And Civil Services is on the top of Executive Branch. So to have a free and fair democracy we need to have such a system in place so that the 3 Pillars Of Democracy remain independent of each other and should not meddle in others jurisdiction.

After Independence our great leaders felt the need and formed a Civil Services which is independent from political agenda of any party (exceptions are always there).

The Constituent Assembly of India intended that the bureaucracy should be able to speak out freely, without fear of persecution or financial insecurity as an essential element in unifying the nation. The IAS officers are recruited by the Union government on the recommendation of the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) and posted under various State governments. While the respective State Governments have control over them they can not censure or take disciplinary action against IAS and other All India Services officers withot consulting the Union Government(Central) and the UPSC. This independence has been sometimes severely criticised by many quarters of civil society.

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History Of Indian Administartive Services

As you all know IAS has become backbone of Indian Bureaucracy. Even from the time of British Raj it was felt that Govt. Of India needs and intensive cadre of qualified and well intellectual people who can support and contribute in running of the Government.


In the 1860s after the takeover of the East India Company over India, the British Civil Service came to India. In the beginning, the British civil service was a part of a police state where its major task was that of carrying out law and order functions. There was no code of conduct developed by any of the British-India provinces. The different provinces had different civil services.

To make a clear distinction between the government officials from the army officials, the term civil service was used by the British government in undivided Punjab in the later part of the 19th century.
The British government set up the Indian civil service in 1911, primarily with the objective of strengthening the British administration in the United Kingdom. Under the East India Company administrators of their controlled territories were engaged. These became the Honorable East India Company Civil Servants (HEICS).

The Indian Civil Service (commonly known as the Imperial Civil Service or ICS) was the civil service of the Indian Government under the British colonial rule in India. They were appointed under Section XXXII of the Government of India Act of 1858 to posts which were reserved for them alone.
This service still continues in the contemporary Civil Services of India, though these are now organised differently post-independence.

ICS officers helped the then British Raj to rule on Indian Sub-Continent in a manner which was really unimaginable for anyone. As earlier they were all British Officers and it was very difficult for them to rule a country with size many times larger than theirs, with many terrains, many languages, cultures etc.

In 20th century it became one of the most prestigious service in India, when govt. allowed Indian people to sit in the exam and to qualify for this service.
Some of our greatest freedom fighters topped Civil Services exams in pre-Independence era and shown the Imperial Govt. that Indian are the best.

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Indian Administrative Service

The Indian Administrative Service (IAS) is the administrative civil service of the executive branch of the Government of the Republic of India.
The officers of the IAS play a major role in managing the bureaucracy of both the Union Government (Central Government) and the state governments, with its officers holding strategic posts across the country. It is one of the three All India Services.

It has been seen as the most reputed Public Service in India from even before independence. Even in modern times, when most of the aspirants are running for Private Jobs, still a big chunk of youth is preparing for The Prestigious IAS exams.

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