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Civil Services Coaching – Alliance Defence Training Academy

Civil Services Coaching in Dehradun

The Civil Services Examination is conducted by UPSC for graduates who wish to become officers in the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Foreign Service (IFS), Indian Police Service (IPS), and various other Group 'A' and Group 'B' central services. CSE is one of the most prestigious and competitive exams in India, and proper guidance plays a very important role in success.

ELIGIBILITY CONDITIONS :

(i) NATIONALITY :

A candidate must be either :-

  • (a) A citizen of India, or
  • (b) a subject of Nepal, or
  • (c) a subject of Bhutan, or
  • (d) a Tibetan refugee who came over to India before 1st January, 1962 with the intention of permanently settling in India, or
  • (e) 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 (b), (c), (d) and (e) shall be a person in whose favour a certificate of eligibility has been issued by the Government of India. A candidate in whose case a certificate of eligibility is necessary, may be admitted to the examination but the offer of appointment may be given only after the necessary eligibility certificate has been issued to him/her by the Government of India.

(ii) AGE LIMITS :

(a) A candidate must have attained the age of 21 years and must not have attained the age of 32 years on 1st August, 2026, i.e. he must have been born not earlier than 2nd August, 1994 and not later than 1st August, 2005.

(b) The upper age limit prescribed above will be relaxable:-

  • (i) up to a maximum of five years if a candidate belongs to a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe
  • (ii) up to a maximum of three years in the case of candidates belonging to Other Backward Classes who are eligible to avail of reservation applicable to such candidates.
  • (iii) 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
  • (iv) 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, 2026 and have been released
  • (v) up to a maximum of ten years in the case of Persons with Benchmark Disabilities viz. (a) low vision; (b) Partially deaf; (c) locomotor disability (Sub-category : leprosy cured and acid attack victims only).

Services & Posts Covered

Preliminary Examination of the Civil Services Examination for recruitment to the Services and Posts mentioned below will be held by the Union Public Service Commission.

  • Indian Administrative Service
  • Indian Foreign Service
  • Indian Police Service
  • Indian Audit and Accounts Service, Group 'A'
  • Indian Civil Accounts Service, Group 'A'
  • Indian Corporate Law Service, Group 'A'
  • Indian Defence Accounts Service, Group 'A'
  • Indian Defence Estates Service, Group 'A'
  • Indian Information Service, Group 'A'
  • Indian Postal Service, Group 'A'
  • Indian Post & Telecommunication Accounts and Finance Service, Group 'A'
  • Indian Railway Management Service (Traffic), Group 'A'
  • Indian Railway Management Service (Personnel), Group 'A'
  • Indian Railway Management Service (Accounts), Group 'A'
  • Indian Railway Protection Force Service, Group 'A'
  • Indian Revenue Service (Customs & Indirect Taxes) Group 'A'
  • Indian Revenue Service (Income Tax) Group 'A'
  • Indian Trade Service, Group 'A' (Grade III)
  • Armed Forces Headquarters Civil Service, Group 'B' (Section Officer's Grade)
  • DANICS, Group 'B'
  • DANIPS, Group 'B'
  • Pondicherry Civil Service (PONDICS), Group 'B'
  • Pondicherry Police Service (PONDIPS), Group 'B'

NUMBER OF ATTEMPTS:

Category Number of Attempts
SC/ST Unlimited
OBC 9
PwBD 9
General (GL) 9
EWS 9

Note: The terms – GL for General, EWS for Economically Weaker Sections, SC for Scheduled Castes, ST for Scheduled Tribes, OBC for Other Backward Classes and PwBD for Persons with Benchmark Disability

PLAN OF EXAMINATION

The competitive examination comprises two successive stages :

  • The preliminary Examination will consist of two papers of Objective type (multiple choice questions) and carry a maximum of 400 marks in the subjects
  • This examination is meant to serve as a screening test only; the marks obtained in the Preliminary Examination by the candidates who are declared qualified for admission to the Main Examination will not be counted for determining their final order of merit.
  • The number of candidates to be admitted to the Main Examination will be about twelve to thirteen times the total approximate number of vacancies to be filled in the year through this examination.
  • Only those candidates who are declared by the Commission to have qualified in the Preliminary Examination in the year will be eligible for admission to the Main Examination of that year provided they are otherwise eligible for admission, to the Main Examination.
  • The Main Examination will consist of written examination and an interview test.
  • The Civil Services (Main) Examination will consist of a Written Examination and an Interview/Personality Test.
  • The Written Examination will consist of 9 papers of conventional essay type in the subjects set
  • The number of candidates to be summoned for interview will be about twice the number of vacancies to be filled. The Interview/Personality Test will carry 275 marks (with no minimum qualifying marks).

Scheme and Subjects for the Preliminary and Main Examination

A. PRELIMINARY EXAMINATION:

The Examination shall comprise of two compulsory Papers of 200 marks each.

Note: (i) Both the question papers will be of the objective type (multiple choice questions) and each will be of two hours duration.

The General Studies Paper-II of the Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination will be a qualifying paper with minimum qualifying marks fixed at 33%.

The question papers will be set both in Hindi and English.

B. MAIN EXAMINATION:

The Written Examination will consist of the following papers:—

Qualifying Papers:
  • Paper-A (One of the Indian Language to be selected by the candidate from the Languages included in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution) - 300 Marks
  • Paper-B English - 300 Marks
Papers to be counted for merit:
  • Paper-I Essay - 250 Marks
  • Paper-II General Studies-I (Indian Heritage and Culture, History and Geography of the World and Society) - 250 Marks
  • Paper-III General Studies -II (Governance, Constitution, Polity, Social Justice and International relations) - 250 Marks
  • Paper-IV General Studies -III (Technology, Economic Development, Bio-diversity, Environment, Security and Disaster Management) - 250 Marks
  • Paper-V General Studies -IV (Ethics, Integrity and Aptitude) - 250 Marks
  • Paper-VI Optional Subject - Paper 1 - 250 Marks
  • Paper-VII Optional Subject - Paper 2 - 250 Marks

Sub Total (Written test): 1750 Marks

Personality Test: 275 Marks

Grand Total: 2025 Marks

List of optional subjects for Main Examination:
  • Agriculture
  • Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Science
  • Anthropology
  • Botany
  • Chemistry
  • Civil Engineering
  • Commerce and Accountancy
  • Economics
  • Electrical Engineering
  • Geography
  • Geology
  • History
  • Law
  • Management
  • Mathematics
  • Mechanical Engineering
  • Medical Science
  • Philosophy
  • Physics
  • Political Science and International Relations
  • Psychology
  • Public Administration
  • Sociology
  • Statistics
  • Zoology
  • Literature of any one language

Languages: Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Odia, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Santhali, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu and English.

Part A—Preliminary Examination

Paper I - (200 marks) Duration: Two hours
  • Current events of national and international importance.
  • History of India and Indian National Movement.
  • Indian and World Geography-Physical, Social, Economic Geography of India and the World.
  • Indian Polity and Governance-Constitution, Political System, Panchayati Raj, Public Policy, Rights Issues, etc.
  • Economic and Social Development-Sustainable Development, Poverty, Inclusion, Demographics, Social Sector Initiatives, etc.
  • General issues on Environmental ecology, Bio-diversity and Climate Change - that do not require subject specialization.
  • General Science.
Paper II - (200 marks) Duration: Two hours
  • Comprehension; Interpersonal skills including communication skills;
  • Logical reasoning and analytical ability;
  • Decision making and problem solving;
  • General mental ability;
  • Basic numeracy (numbers and their relations, orders of magnitude, etc.) (Class X level), Data interpretation (charts, graphs, tables, data sufficiency etc. — Class X level);

Note 1: Paper-II of the Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination will be a qualifying paper with minimum qualifying marks fixed at 33%.

Note 2: The questions will be of multiple choice, objective type.

Note 3: It is mandatory for the candidate to appear in both the Papers of Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination for the purpose of evaluation. Therefore a candidate will be disqualified in case he/she does not appear in both the papers of Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination.

Part B—Main Examination

The main Examination is intended to assess the overall intellectual traits and depth of understanding of candidates rather than merely the range of their information and memory.

The nature and standard of questions in the General Studies papers (Paper II to Paper V) will be such that a well-educated person will be able to answer them without any specialized study.

The questions will be such as to test a candidate's general awareness of a variety of subjects, which will have relevance for a career in Civil Services.

The questions are likely to test the candidate's basic understanding of all relevant issues, and ability to analyze, and take a view on conflicting socio-economic goals, objectives and demands.

The candidates must give relevant, meaningful and succinct answers.

The scope of the syllabus for optional subject papers (Paper VI and Paper VII) for the examination is broadly of the honours degree level i.e. a level higher than the bachelors' degree and lower than the masters' degree. In the case of Engineering, Medical Science and law, the level corresponds to the bachelors' degree.

QUALIFYING PAPERS ON INDIAN LANGUAGES AND ENGLISH

The aim of the paper is to test the candidates' ability to read and understand serious discursive prose, and to express ideas clearly and correctly, in English and Indian language concerned.

The pattern of questions would be broadly as follows:

English:

  • (i) Comprehension of given passages.
  • (ii) Precis Writing.
  • (iii) Usage and Vocabulary.
  • (iv) Short Essays.

Indian Languages:

  • (i) comprehension of given passages.
  • (ii) Precis Writing.
  • (iii) Usage and Vocabulary.
  • (iv) Short Essays.
  • (v) Translation from English to the Indian Language and vice-versa.

Note 1: The papers on Indian Languages and English will be of Matriculation or equivalent standard and will be of qualifying nature only. The marks obtained in these papers will not be counted for ranking.

Note 2: The candidates will have to answer the English and Indian Languages papers in English and the respective Indian language (except where translation is involved).

PAPER-I Essay:

Candidates may be required to write essays on multiple topics. They will be expected to keep closely to the subject of the essay to arrange their ideas in orderly fashion, and to write concisely. Credit will be given for effective and exact expression.

PAPER-II General Studies-I: (Indian Heritage and Culture, History and Geography of the World and Society)
  • Indian culture will cover the salient aspects of Art Forms, literature and Architecture from ancient to modern times.
  • Modern Indian history from about the middle of the eighteenth century until the present-significant events, personalities, issues.
  • The Freedom Struggle — its various stages and important contributors/contributions from different parts of the country.
  • Post-independence consolidation and reorganization within the country.
  • History of the world will include events from 18th century such as industrial revolution, world wars, redrawal of national boundaries, colonization, decolonization, political philosophies like communism, capitalism, socialism etc.— their forms and effect on the society.
  • Salient features of Indian Society, Diversity of India.
  • Role of women and women's organization, population and associated issues, poverty and developmental issues, urbanization, their problems and their remedies.
  • Effects of globalization on Indian society.
  • Social empowerment, communalism, regionalism & secularism.
  • Salient features of world's physical geography.
  • Distribution of key natural resources across the world (including South Asia and the Indian subcontinent); factors responsible for the location of primary, secondary, and tertiary sector industries in various parts of the world (including India).
  • Important Geophysical phenomena such as earthquakes, Tsunami, Volcanic activity, cyclone etc., geographical features and their location-changes in critical geographical features (including water-bodies and ice-caps) and in flora and fauna and the effects of such changes.
PAPER-III General Studies-II: (Governance, Constitution, Polity, Social Justice and International relations)
  • Indian Constitution—historical underpinnings, evolution, features, amendments, significant provisions and basic structure.
  • Functions and responsibilities of the Union and the States, issues and challenges pertaining to the federal structure, devolution of powers and finances up to local levels and challenges therein.
  • Separation of powers between various organs dispute redressal mechanisms and institutions.
  • Comparison of the Indian constitutional scheme with that of other countries.
  • Parliament and State legislatures—structure, functioning, conduct of business, powers & privileges and issues arising out of these.
  • Structure, organization and functioning of the Executive and the Judiciary—Ministries and Departments of the Government; pressure groups and formal/informal associations and their role in the Polity.
  • Salient features of the Representation of People's Act.
  • Appointment to various Constitutional posts, powers, functions and responsibilities of various Constitutional Bodies.
  • Statutory, regulatory and various quasi-judicial bodies.
  • Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.
  • Development processes and the development industry —the role of NGOs, SHGs, various groups and associations, donors, charities, institutional and other stakeholders.
  • Welfare schemes for vulnerable sections of the population by the Centre and States and the performance of these schemes; mechanisms, laws, institutions and Bodies constituted for the protection and betterment of these vulnerable sections.
  • Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources.
  • Issues relating to poverty and hunger.
  • Important aspects of governance, transparency and accountability, e-governance- applications, models, successes, limitations, and potential; citizens charters, transparency & accountability and institutional and other measures.
  • Role of civil services in a democracy.
  • India and its neighborhood- relations.
  • Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India's interests.
  • Effect of policies and politics of developed and developing countries on India's interests, Indian diaspora.
  • Important International institutions, agencies and fora- their structure, mandate.
PAPER-IV General Studies-III: (Technology, Economic Development, Bio diversity, Environment, Security and Disaster Management)
  • Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilization, of resources, growth, development and employment.
  • Inclusive growth and issues arising from it.
  • Government Budgeting.
  • Major crops-cropping patterns in various parts of the country, - different types of irrigation and irrigation systems storage, transport and marketing of agricultural produce and issues and related constraints; e-technology in the aid of farmers.
  • Issues related to direct and indirect farm subsidies and minimum support prices; Public Distribution System- objectives, functioning, limitations, revamping; issues of buffer stocks and food security; Technology missions; economics of animal-rearing.
  • Food processing and related industries in India- scope' and significance, location, upstream and downstream requirements, supply chain management.
  • Land reforms in India.
  • Effects of liberalization on the economy, changes in industrial policy and their effects on industrial growth.
  • Infrastructure: Energy, Ports, Roads, Airports, Railways etc.
  • Investment models.
  • Science and Technology- developments and their applications and effects in everyday life.
  • Achievements of Indians in science & technology; indigenization of technology and developing new technology.
  • Awareness in the fields of IT, Space, Computers, robotics, nano-technology, bio-technology and issues relating to intellectual property rights.
  • Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment.
  • Disaster and disaster management.
  • Linkages between development and spread of extremism.
  • Role of external state and non-state actors in creating challenges to internal security.
  • Challenges to internal security through communication networks, role of media and social networking sites in internal security challenges, basics of cyber security; money-laundering and its prevention.
  • Security challenges and their management in border areas - linkages of organized crime with terrorism.
  • Various Security forces and agencies and their mandate.
PAPER-V General Studies-IV: (Ethics, Integrity and Aptitude)

This paper will include questions to test the candidates' attitude and approach to issues relating to integrity, probity in public life and his problem solving approach to various issues and conflicts faced by him in dealing with society.

Questions may utilise the case study approach to determine these aspects. The following broad areas will be covered:

  • Ethics and Human Interface: Essence, determinants and consequences of Ethics in-human actions; dimensions of ethics; ethics - in private and public relationships. Human Values - lessons from the lives and teachings of great leaders, reformers and administrators; role of family society and educational institutions in inculcating values.
  • Attitude: content, structure, function; its influence and relation with thought and behaviour; moral and political attitudes; social influence and persuasion.
  • Aptitude and foundational values for Civil Service, integrity, impartiality and non-partisanship, objectivity, dedication to public service, empathy, tolerance and compassion towards the weaker-sections.
  • Emotional intelligence-concepts, and their utilities and application in administration and governance.
  • Contributions of moral thinkers and philosophers from India and world.
  • Public/Civil service values and Ethics in Public administration: Status and problems; ethical concerns and dilemmas in government and private institutions; laws, rules, regulations and conscience as sources of ethical guidance; accountability and ethical governance; strengthening of ethical and moral values in governance; ethical issues in international relations and funding; corporate governance.
  • Probity in Governance: Concept of public service; Philosophical basis of governance and probity; Information sharing and transparency in government, Right to Information, Codes of Ethics, Codes of Conduct, Citizen's Charters, Work culture, Quality of service delivery, Utilization of public funds, challenges of corruption. Case Studies on above issues.
PAPER-VI & PAPER VII Optional Subject Papers I & II

Candidate may choose any optional subject from amongst the List of Optional Subjects given above.

What Alliance Defence Academy Provides for Civil Services Aspirants

Alliance Defence Academy provides:

  • Complete coverage of Prelims, Mains and Interview
  • Expert faculty for General Studies and Optional Subjects
  • Regular mock tests and answer writing practice
  • Current Affairs updates and monthly magazines
  • Interview guidance and personality development
  • Study material as per latest UPSC pattern
  • Doubt clearing sessions and individual mentorship

Why Choose Alliance for Civil Services Preparation

  • Structured classroom teaching with disciplined environment
  • Experienced faculty from civil services background
  • Comprehensive study material and test series
  • Personalized attention and performance tracking
  • Focus on conceptual clarity and answer writing skills

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