Indian Administrative Service

The Indian Administrative Service is the premier administrative arm of the All India Services of Government of India. The IAS is one of the three All India Services along with the Indian Police Service and the Indian Forest Service. Members of these three services serve the Government of India as well as the individual states. IAS officers are also deployed to various government constitutional bodies, staff and line agencies, auxiliary bodies, public sector undertakings, regulatory bodies, statutory bodies and autonomous bodies.
As with other countries following the parliamentary system of government, the IAS is a part of the permanent bureaucracy of the nation, and is an inseparable part of the executive of the Government of India. As such, the bureaucracy remains politically neutral and provides administrative continuity to the ruling party or coalition.
Upon confirmation of service, an IAS officer serves a probationary period as a sub-divisional magistrate. Completion of this probation is followed by an executive administrative role in a district as a district magistrate and collector which lasts several years. After this tenure, an officer may be promoted to head a whole state administrative division as a divisional commissioner.
On attaining the higher scales of the pay matrix, IAS officers may lead government departments or ministries. In these roles, IAS officers represent the country at international level in bilateral and multilateral negotiations. If serving on a deputation, they may be employed in International organization such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations, or its agencies. IAS officers are also involved in conducting elections in India as mandated by the Election Commission of India.

History

During the East India Company period, the civil services were classified into threecovenanted, uncovenanted and special civil services. The covenanted civil service, or the Honourable East India Company's Civil Service, as it was called, largely comprised civil servants occupying the senior posts in the government. The uncovenanted civil service was introduced solely to facilitate the entry of Indians onto the lower rung of the administration. The special service comprised specialised departments, such as the Indian Forest Service, the Imperial Police and the Indian Political Department, whose ranks were drawn from either the covenanted civil service or the Indian Army. The Imperial Police included many Indian Army officers among its members, although after 1893 an annual exam was used to select its officers. In 1858 the HEICCS was replaced by the Indian Civil Service, which became the highest civil service in India between 1858 and 1947. The last appointments to the ICS were made in 1942.
With the passing of the Government of India Act 1919 by the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the Indian civil services—under the general oversight of the Secretary of State for India—were split into two arms, the All India Services and the Central Services. The Indian Civil Service was one of the ten All India Services.
In 1946 at the Premier's Conference, the Central Cabinet decided to form the Indian Administrative Service, based on the Indian Civil Service; and the Indian Police Service, based on the Imperial Police.
When India was partitioned following the departure of the British in 1947, the Indian Civil Service was divided between the new dominions of India and Pakistan. The Indian remnant of the ICS was named the Indian Administrative Service, while the Pakistan remnant was named the District Management Group. The modern Indian Administrative Service was created under Article 312 in part XIV of the Constitution of India, and the All India Services Act, 1951.

Indian Frontier Administrative Service

A special cadre was created in 1954 to administer NEFA and for later Some North Eastern Region. It was first mooted by then Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru. The services were placed under Ministry of External Affairs.
In 1968, IFAS was merged with IAS and has hence lost its relevance.

Recruitment

There are three modes of recruitment into the Indian Administrative Service. IAS officers may enter the IAS by passing the Civil Services Examination, which is conducted by the Union Public Service Commission. Officers recruited this way are called direct recruits or regular recruits. Some IAS officers are also recruited from the state civil services, and, in rare cases, selected from non-state civil service. The ratio between direct recruits and promotees is fixed at 2:1. All IAS officers, regardless of the mode of entry, are appointed by the President of India.
File:President Droupadi Murmu with a group of IAS officers at Rashtrapati Bhavan, in New Delhi on August 25, 2022.jpg|thumb|President Murmu with a group of IAS officers at Rashtrapati Bhavan, in New Delhi
Only about 180 candidates out of over 1million applicants, who apply through CSE, are successful, a success rate of less than 0.02percent.
Unlike candidates appointed to other civil services, a successful IAS candidate is rendered ineligible to retake CSE. From 1951 to 1978, an IAS/IFS candidate was required to submit two additional papers along with three optional papers to be eligible for the Indian Administrative Service or the Indian Foreign Service. The two additional papers were postgraduate level submissions, compared to the graduate level of the optional papers, and it was this distinction that resulted in a higher status for the IAS and IFS. The two postgraduate level submissions were later removed, but this has not changed the perceived higher status of the IAS and IFS. After the selection process, the successful candidates undergo training at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration in Mussoorie, Uttarakhand.

State cadres

Cadre allocation policy

The central government announced a new cadre allocation policy for the All India Services in August 2017, claiming it as being a policy to ensure national integration of the bureaucracy and to ensure an All India character of the services. The existing twenty sixcadres were to be divided into fivezones by the Department of Personnel and Training. Under the new policy, a candidate first selects their zones of preference, in descending order, then indicates a cadre preference from each preferred zone. The candidate indicates their second cadre preference for every preferred zone subsequently. The preference for the zones and cadres remains in the same order and no change is permitted.
Officers remain in their allocated cadre or are deputed to the Government of India.

Zone	Cadres
Zone-I	AGMUT, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Rajasthan and Haryana.
Zone-II	Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha.
Zone-III	Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.
Zone-IV	West Bengal, Sikkim, Assam-Meghalaya, Manipur, Tripura and Nagaland.
Zone-V	Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

Previous cadre allocation policies

Until 2008, there was no formal system that permitted the selection of a state cadre preferred by the candidate. If the candidate was not placed in a vacancy in their home state, they would be allocated to other states, which were selected from a roster in alphabetic order, starting from 'A', 'H', 'M' or 'T', depending on the year. For example, if in a particular year the roster begins from 'A', then the first candidate on the roster will go to the Andhra Pradesh state cadre, the next one to Bihar, and then to Chhattisgarh, Gujarat and so on in alphabetical order. The next year the roster starts from 'H', for either Haryana or Himachal Pradesh. This system, practiced since the mid-1980s, ensured that officers from different states were placed all over India.
The system of permanent state cadres resulted in wide disparities of professional exposure for officers when comparing those from developed versus less developed states. Changes in state cadres were only permitted on grounds of marriage to an All India Services officer of another state cadre or under other exceptional circumstances. The officers were allowed to go to their home state cadre on deputation for a limited period after which they would be required to return to their allocated cadre.
From 2008, IAS officers were assigned to state cadres at the beginning of their service. There was one cadre for each Indian state, except for twojoint cadres: Assam–Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh–Goa–Mizoram–Union Territories. The "insider-outsider ratio" was maintained at 1:2, with one-third of the direct recruits being 'insiders' from the same state. The rest were posted as outsiders according to the state allocation roster in states other than their home states, as indicated by their preference.

Responsibilities of an IAS officer

The typical functions performed by an IAS officer are:

To collect land revenue and function as court officials in matters of land revenue, to maintain law and order, to implement union and state government policies at the grass-roots level when posted to field positions i.e. as Sub-divisional magistrate, Additional District Magistrate, District magistrate and Divisional commissioner, and to act as an agent of the government in the field, i.e. to act as an intermediary between the public and the government.
To implement government policies, to execute government decisions, to oversee the day to day administration and serve as the head of the department, to coordinate with other departments/agencies, to represent the department when posted as Director/Commissioner of a Directorate/Commissionerate/Department.
To handle the administration and daily proceedings of the government, including the formulation and implementation of policy in consultation with the minister-in-charge of a specific ministry or department.
To contribute to policy formulation, and to make a final decision in certain matters, with the agreement of the minister concerned or the council of ministers, when posted at the higher level in the Government of India as a joint secretary, additional secretary, special secretary or secretary equivalent, secretary and Cabinet Secretary, and in state governments as secretary, principal secretary, additional chief secretary or special chief secretary and chief secretary.