IAS Exam Eligibility Criteria

Educational Background For IAS Exam

• The candidate must hold a bachelor degree from any of the Universities incorporated by an Act of the Central or State Legislature in India or other educational institutions established by an Act of Parliament or declared to be deemed as a University, under Section-3 of the University Grants Commission Act, 1956, or possess an equivalent qualification.
• Candidates who have appeared or intend to appear for the final examination and are awaiting results are also eligible to apply for the Preliminary Examination.
• All such candidates who qualify for the Prelims examination must produce proof of Pass Bachelor Degree to appear for the Civil Services Main Examination. This Degree has to be attached with their application for the Main Examinations.
• The UPSC may in exceptional cases treat a candidate without the foregoing requisite qualification as an eligible candidate if he/she has passed an examination conducted by other institutions, the standard of which justifies his / her admission in the opinion of the Commission. The criteria may apply to candidates having bachelor's degrees from any reputed foreign university for example Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard etc.
• Candidates with professional and technical bachelor's degrees that are recognized by the Government are also eligible to apply example MBBS, BE etc.
• Candidates who have passed the final year of MBBS but are yet to complete the internship can also appear for the Main Examination. However, they must submit a certificate from the concerned authority of the University / Institution that they have passed the final professional medical examination along with their Main Examination application. At the Interview stage, they must produce a certificate from a competent authority that they have completed (including internship) and all the requirements for the award of the Medical Degree.

Age limit For IAS Exam

A candidate must have attained the age of 21 years and must not have attained the age of 32 years on 1st August of the year of examination if he is a general category student/aspirant. The upper age limit for IAS as well as all services prescribed above is relaxed for OBC, SC, ST and other categories of aspirants.

Age limit relaxation for OBC SC/ST In IAS Exam

• Up to a maximum of five years if a candidate belongs to a Scheduled Caste (SC) or a Scheduled Tribe (ST).
• Up to a maximum of three years in the case of candidates belonging to Other Backward Classes (OBC) who are eligible to avail of reservation applicable to such candidates.
• Up to a maximum of five years if a candidate had ordinarily been domiciled in the State of Jammu & Kashmir during the period from the 1st January 1980 to the 31st December 1989.
• Up to a maximum of three years in the case of Defence Services personnel disabled in operations during hostilities with any foreign country or in a disturbed area and released as a consequence thereof.
• Up to a maximum of five years in the case of ex-servicemen including Commissioned Officers and ECOs/SSCOs who have rendered at least five years Military Service as on 1st August and must have been released.
• On completion of assignment (including those whose assignment is due to be completed within one year from 1st August) otherwise than by way of dismissal or discharge on account of misconduct or inefficiency, or on account of physical disability attributable to Military Service, or on invalid.
• Up to a maximum of five years in the case of ECOs/SSCOs who have completed an initial period of assignment of five years Military Service as on 1st August and whose assignment has been extended beyond five years and in whose case the Ministry of Defence issues a certificate that they can apply for civil employment and that they will be released on three months notice on selection from the date of receipt of offer of appointment.
• Up to a maximum of 10 years in the case of blind, deaf-mute and orthopedically handicapped persons.

Cumulative Age-relaxation For IAS Exam

• Candidates belonging to the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes and the Other Backward Classes who are also covered under any other clauses of para 3(ii) (b) above, viz. those coming under the category of Ex-servicemen, persons domiciled in the State of J & K, blind, deaf-mute and orthopedically handicapped etc. will be eligible for grant of cumulative age relaxation under both the categories.
• The term ex-servicemen will apply to the persons who are defined as ex-servicemen in the Ex-servicemen (Re-employment in Civil Services and Posts) Rules, 1979, as amended from time to time.
• The age concession under para 3(ii) (b) (v) and (vi) will not be admissible to Ex-Servicemen and Commissioned Officers including ECOs/SSCOs who are released on their own request.
• Notwithstanding the provision of age-relaxation under para 3 (ii) (b) (vii) above, a physically disabled candidate will be considered to be eligible for appointment only if he/she (after such physical examination as the Government or appointing authority, as the case may be, may prescribe) is found to satisfy the requirements of physical and medical standards for the concerned Services/posts to be allocated to the physically disabled candidates by the Government.

Attempts In IAS Exam

The UPSC has raised the upper age limit and a number of attempts of applicants for the Civil Service Examination with effect from 2015. The upper age limit will be 32 years for the unreserved (general) category with 6 attempts. It will be 35 years for OBC candidates with 9 attempts; and will be 37 years for SC/ST candidates with an unlimited number of attempts. For physically handicapped candidates the age limit is 42, 45, and 47 years for the General, OBC, and SC/ST category respectively while the number of attempts is 9 for General and OBC and unlimited for SC/SC category.

Restrictions on applying for IAS exam given by UPSC:

A candidate who is appointed to the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) or the Indian Foreign Service (IFS) on the results of an earlier examination is NOT eligible to take this examination again. In case such a candidate is appointed to the IAS/IFS after the Preliminary Examination of Civil Services Examination, is over and he/she continues to be a member of that service, he/she shall NOT be eligible to appear in the Civil Services (Mains) Examination, notwithstanding his/her having qualified in the Preliminary Examination. Also provided that if such a candidate is appointed to IAS/IFS after the commencement of the Civil Services (Main) Examination but before the result thereof and continues to be a member of that service, he/she shall NOT be considered for appointment to any service/post on the basis of the result of this examination viz. Civil Services Examination.

Restrictions Relaxed on applying for the IAS exam:

The candidates who are appointed to other services barring the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and the Indian Foreign Service (IFS) on the results of an earlier examination are eligible to take this examination again.

Other Criteria For IAS Exam:

Nationality For IAS Exam:

• The candidate must be a citizen of India to be eligible for the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and the Indian Police Service (IPS), for other services, a candidate must be either:
• a citizen of India,
• or a subject of Nepal,
• or a subject of Bhutan,
• or a Tibetan refugee who came over to India before 1st January 1962 with the intention of permanently settling in India,
• or 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.
  Provided that a candidate belonging to categories (c), (d), (e) and (f) shall be a person in whose favor a certificate of eligibility has been issued by the Government of India.
  Provided further that candidates belonging to categories (c), (d) (e) and (f) above will not be eligible for appointment to the Indian Foreign Service

Note: A candidate in whose case a certificate of eligibility is necessary is eligible to take the examination but the offer of appointment may be given to only those candidates who have submitted the necessary eligibility certificate issued to him/her by the Government of India.

Note: The Candidates applying for the Civil Service Examination should ensure that they fulfill all eligibility conditions and criteria for admission to the examination. Their admission to all the stages of the examination will be purely provisional subject to satisfying the prescribed eligibility conditions. The mere issue of the admission certificate to the candidate will not imply that his/her candidature has been finally cleared by the UPSC. UPSC takes up verification of eligibility conditions with reference to original documents only after the candidate has qualified for the Interview/ Personality Test.

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