Lucknow: As many as 25 UP Civil Services officers have been elevated to the cadre of Indian Administrative Service, as per an official order. These officers are Ashok Kumar, Mahendra Prasad, Gaurav Verma, Rajneesh Chandra, Manoj Kumar Rai, Nidhi Srivastava, Khempal Singh, Sanjay Chauhan, Sanjay Kumar Sharma, Santosh Kumar Sharma, Arun Kumar-II, Shyam Bahadur Singh, Pawan Kumar Gangwar, Brijesh Kumar, Harikesh Chaurasia, Mahendra Singh, Ravindra Pal Singh, Anil Kumar, Vandana Tripathi, Sameer, Archana Gaharwar, Kumar Vineet, Vishal Kumar, Dhananjay Shukla, and Kapil Singha.

It is worth mentioning that State civil servants have to clear a Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) written examination and interview to earn a promotion to the three all India services — IAS, IPS and Indian Forest Service. Earlier state services officers were being selected for IAS, IPS and IFoS on the basis of their seniority and annual confidential reports (ACRs).

As per the revised scheme for induction of state civil services/non-SCS/State police services/state forest services to IAS/IPS/IFoS, UPSC conducts a common examination to decide on the eligible candidates. The selection will be made through a 1,000-mark, four-stage process, including a written exam and interview.

The new norms require a state civil service officer to face the written examination comprising two papers — Paper I on aptitude test and Paper II on General Studies and state-specific/service-specific questions to test the knowledge and application of the officers in the critical areas of public administration and development-related issues. There will be a third written paper on essay, comprehension and precise type only for non-state civil services officers, in addition to the two papers. /BI/