Civil Servant (IAS/PCS)

The Union Public Service Commission introduced the Ethics paper in 2013. The ethics paper is an essential component of the IAS Main Examination. The Ethics syllabus is important because the right strategy can fetch good marks in the paper. The Ethics papers is designed to check the Integrity and Moral principles in the candidates.

The candidates should note that the IAS syllabus is not released separately on the official website. The Union Public Service Commission releases the IAS syllabus as a section in the IAS notification. The candidates can download the IAS syllabus pdf as given here for all their preparation references.

The candidates can check the subject-wise IAS main syllabus in the official pdf.

The candidates should note that the Union Public Service Commission does not provide service-wise vacancies in the official notification. The service-wise vacancies are published by the Ministry of Personnel on its official website. Following the past trends, the number of candidates recruited for the Indian Administrative Service is 180 and 150 candidates are recruited for the Indian Police Service. 

The number of vacancies for other services varies every year.

The Union Public Service Commission releases the Civil Service (IAS) notification every year to recruit the candidates for the Group A and B Civil Services. It is a common notification for all the All India Services (AIS) which includes 

• Indian Administrative Service
• Indian Police Service &
• Indian Forest Service

The Civil Service notification serves as a Common notification for the prelims exam for Indian Forest Service.

The candidates can download the IAS notification pdf in the following manner:

• Go to upsc.gov.in.
• Click on the Civil Service notification 2026 link.
• A new window will appear. 
• Follow the link for the Civil Service (IAS) 2026 notification pdf link given corresponding to the exam name.
• Download and Save the notification.

The IAS notification 2026 is available here to be downloaded.

The candidates should read and understand all the information mentioned in the IAS notifcation to know whether they are eligible for the Civil Service Exam or not. The IAS notification is an important document because it will be the official document which will work as a ready recknoer for all information about the exam.

In case of any judicial interpretation, the IAS notification will be deemed as the final official document. 

The Union Public Service Commission release the IAS prelims answer key after the declaration of final result. It implies that the Civil Service prelims answer key is released next year of the prelims exam. The candidates can download the UPSC Civil Service (IAS) answer key in the follwing manner:

Visit the official website of UPSC-upsc.gov.in

Click on the Examination tab, a dropdown list will appear 

Click on the Answer Key button

Click on the Download button of the exam for which answer key needs to be seen.

The UPSC IAS admit card 2024 was released on June 7, 2024. The Commission conducted the IAS 2024 exam(Prelims) on June 16. The Commission has a standard time line of releasing the admit card, three weeks before the exam date. But this year, the Commission released the IAS admit card only ten days before the exam.