Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) conducts Civil Services exam to recruit candidates for the three All India Services and Central Civil Services for various departments of the Government of India. The Civil Services Exam is commonly called as the IAS Exam. IAS notification 2020 will start the IAS exam process officially. IAS 2020 Notification will outline the vacancies, timeline of the exam, official IAS syllabus, number of attempts and the likes.

UPSC Notification 2020 was released by UPSC as per the UPSC calendar for 2020. UPSC has notified 796 vacancies which are very less as compared to the previous year even when the services related to Indian Railways are also notified in the UPSC NOTIFICATION.

The IAS exam is conducted to recruit the top functionaries who chair the top positions in all the government departments. The topper of the IAS exam has the opportunity to become the Cabinet Secretary to the Government of India. It is the highest bureaucratic position one person can have in India. UPSC conducts the IAS Exam for the following services.

All India Services

• Indian Administrative Services(IAS)
• Indian Police Servies(IPS) 
• Indian Forest Services(IFoS) [ Prelims Only]

Central Civil Services

• Indian Foreign Services(IFS)
• Indian P & T Accounts & Finance Service, Group ‘A’.
• Indian Audit and Accounts Service, Group ‘A’.
• Indian Revenue Service (Customs and Central Excise), Group ‘A’.
• Indian Defence Accounts Service, Group ‘A’.
• Indian Revenue Service (I.T.), Group ‘A’.
• Indian Ordnance Factories Service, Group ‘A’ (Assistant Works Manager, Administration).
• Indian Postal Service, Group ‘A’.
• Indian Civil Accounts Service, Group ‘A’.
• Indian Railway Traffic Service, Group ‘A’.
• Indian Railway Accounts Service, Group 'A'.
• Indian Railway Personnel Service, Group ‘A’.
• Post of Assistant Security Commissioner in Railway Protection Force, Group ‘A’
• Indian Defence Estates Service, Group ‘A’.
• Indian Information Service (Junior Grade), Group ‘A’.
• Indian Trade Service, Group 'A'.
• Indian Corporate Law Service, Group ‘A’.
• Armed Forces Headquarters Civil Service, Group ‘B’ (Section Officer’s Grade).
• Delhi, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep, Daman & Diu and Dadra & Nagar Haveli Civil Service, Group 'B'.
• Delhi, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep, Daman & Diu and Dadra & Nagar Haveli Police Service, Group 'B'.
• Pondicherry Civil Service, Group 'B'.
• Pondicherry Police Service, Group ‘B’.

IAS Exam Highlights

Exam Name:Civil Services (IAS) Exam 2020

Conducting Body:Union Public Service Commission

Exam Level: National

UPSC Vacancies:796

Exam Frequency:Once a year

Exam Mode:Offline - Pen and Paper Mode

Exam Stages:Prelims - Mains(Written) - Mains(Interview)

Application Fee:100

Language:Prelims - English and Hindi

No. of Test Cities: Test centres across the nation

Eligibility for IAS is one of the first questions which crops up in the mind of an IAS aspirant. The nationality, the number of attempts, age limit and the educational qualifications are some of the basic eligibility criteria for IAS exam. All candidates who wish to appear in IAS exam 2020 need to ensure that they meet all the eligibility criteria as mentioned below.

For Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and Indian Police Service (IPS), a candidate must be a citizen of India. For all other services, a candidate can either be a citizen of India or

• A subject of Nepal/ Bhutan
• A Tibetan refugee who came over to India before January 1, 1962 with the intention of permanently settling in India
• 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

Note: Candidates who are subjects of Nepal/ Bhutan or Tibetan refugees are not eligible to apply for Indian Foreign Service (IFS).

Candidates must be minimum 21 years and maximum 32 years of age as on August 1, 2020. This means that candidates must have born not earlier than August 2, 1988 and not later than August 1, 1999.

There is also age relaxation of some years for reserved category candidates:

Category

Age Relaxation , SC/ ST-5 Years,OBC-3 Years

Defence Services Personnel, disabled in operations during hostilities with any foreign country or in a disturbed area and released as a consequence thereof

3 Years

Ex-servicemen including commissioned officers and ECOs/SSCOs who have rendered at least five years of military service as on August 1, 2020 and have been released

5 Years

PwD [(a) blindness and low vision; (b) deaf and hard of hearing; (c) locomotor disability including cerebral palsy, leprosy cured, dwarfism, acid attack victims and muscular dystrophy; (d) autism, intellectual disability, specific learning disability and mental illness; and (e) multiple disabilities from amongst persons under clauses (a) to (d) including deaf-blindness]

10 Years

No age relaxation is provided to the Economically Weaker Sections in the UPSC Civil Services Exam.

Candidates must hold a graduation degree in any stream from any university established under the Act passed by the Parliament of India or State legislature. Candidates who are in the last year of the graduation and awaiting results are also eligible to apply for IAS Preliminary exam. However, such candidates need to submit the proof of passing the requisite exam at the time of applying for the Main exam. The applications for IAS Main exam are usually released in the month of July/ August.

Note: Candidates who have cleared MBBS or any other medical exam but have not completed their internship, by the time of submission of their Civil Services Main Exam applications, will be provisionally admitted to the exam. However, provisional admission to the exam will be given only if candidates submit along with their application a copy of the certificate from the concerned authority of the university/ institution that they had passed the requisite final professional medical exam, informs the official website.

Physical Standards

Candidates must be physically fit according to physical standards given in the Civil Services exam notification.

All candidates are allowed a maximum of six attempts in the IAS exam. However, it may be noted that the restriction of the number of attempts is not applicable for candidates belonging to SC/ST category. Also, candidates belonging to OBC and Persons with Benchmark Disabilities categories are allowed a maximum of nine attempts in the exam.   

If a candidate appears in any one paper of the IAS Prelims Exam, then it is deemed that he has made an attempt in the IAS Exam.

IAS Syllabus has the highest priority in the minds of the IAS aspirants as they start IAS preparation one year before appearing in the IAS exam. IAS syllabus incorporates all the concepts, facts and process which are relevant for humankind to exist. There is nothing which can be termed as out of IAS syllabus. There is one common saying about the IAS syllabus that " Everything under the Sun is IAS Syllabus".

IAS exam is conducted in two stages – Preliminary (objective-type paper) and Mains (descriptive paper and interview). UPSC IAS Preliminary paper is conducted to select candidates for the Main(written) exam. IAS Prelims is just a screening exam and its marks are not considered for the final merit.

UPSC Civil Services Main Exam, as the name suggests, is the main stage of the IAS Exam Process. The marks of the IAS Main exam is taken into consideration for the IAS Final Result. The final merit list for the UPSC Civil Services Exam provides a rank to the candidates. Based on these ranks, Services are allotted to the candidates.

Candidates will be able to fill the UPSC NOTIFICATION in online mode at upsconline.nic.in. Once the application form is filled, candidates also need to pay Civil Services exam application fee in online or offline mode.

Category

Preliminary Exam Fee

Mains Exam Fee

General/ EWS/OBC-Rs 100,Rs 200

Females/ SC/ ST/ Persons with Benchmark Disability- Nil,Nil

Candidates, who successfully filled the online application form, will be downloading their UPSC NOTIFICATION from the official website of the commission three weeks before the commencement of the exam. It may be noted that admit cards will not be sent by post to any candidates. Also, candidates who fail to carry their admit card on the day of exam will not be allowed to take the exam.

The IAS Prelims Exam 2020 will be conducted on May 31. Candidates need to appear for IAS Prelims exam 2020. The Preliminary exam is conducted in order to shortlist candidates for the next stage of the Civil Services exam.

The candidates, who clear the IAS prelims exam, need to fill the Detailed Application Form(DAF) for the IAS Main Exam. The DAF is a very important document and plays a very important role in the IAS Interview and during the service allocation process. It is important because the candidates mention his service preference and state preference in this form only. Based on the information given in the DAF and theUPSC NOTIFICATION, the services and the state cadres are allotted to the candidates after the IAS result.

All candidates, who clear the IAS Prelims exam, can download their admit cards for the Civil Services Mains exam 2020. The admit cards will be available on the official website of UPSC three weeks before the commencement of the Mains exam. The duration of each paper is three hours.

IAS Main Exam 2020 will commence from September 18. Candidates need to appear for IAS Mains Exam as per the details mentioned on the admit card. IAS Mains exam consists of a total of nine descriptive papers. Out of the Nine, two papers are of qualifying in nature. These UPSC NOTIFICATION are of General English and General Language paper. There are Four General Studies papers, One Essay Paper and two optional Subject paper. 

After both the stages of Civil Services Exam (Preliminary and Mains) are conducted successfully, UPSC will release a final UPSC NOTIFICATION on its official website. Candidates whose names/ roll numbers appear in the merit list will then be eligible for recruitment in different services based on their preferences given in the DAF and the number of vacancies for the service.

IAS Question Paper

IAS question paper are very important in IAS preparation.UPSC NOTIFICATION provide a real outline of the syllabus and work as an eye-opener for the IAS aspirants. The candidates should practice with the previous year question papers of IAS so that they can tackle the actual question paper in a better way.

IAS exam centres are notified in the IAS notification each year. IAS Preliminary exam is conducted in about 72 cities across India. IAS Mains exam is conducted in a total of 24 cities across India. The IAS Exam Centres for Prelims and Main exam are given below

The number of candidates in the IAS Main Exam is just 15 to 18 times the number of vacancies notified in the official notification. Since the number of candidates is far less in the IAS Main exam hence the number of centres are also less.

Note: The official website informs that allotment of centres (for both Preliminary and Mains) will be on first-apply-first allot basis. Once the capacity of a particular centre is attained, the same will be frozen and applicants will have to choose a centre from the remaining options. Applicants are, therefore, advised to apply early so that they can get an exam centre of their choice.