The administrative arm of the state in India is centuries old, but the modern bureaucracy that the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) recruits for traces its roots to colonial India under British rule.
It all began with the East India Company, where civil servants were handpicked by the Company’s Directors, trained in London, and then posted to India. That system of patronage gave way in 1854, following Lord Macaulay’s report, which recommended recruiting civil servants on the basis of merit. A Civil Service Commission was then set up in London, and the first competitive examinations were held the following year. But the system was not built with Indians in mind. The examinations were held only in London, and the syllabus gave European classics the largest share of marks. According to UPSC records, Satyendranath Tagore, the elder brother of Rabindranath Tagore, became the first Indian to succeed in 1864, in a decade of the examination’s introduction.
For the next fifty years, Indians petitioned for simultaneous examinations in India, but their demand was ignored. It was only after the First World War and the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms that the demand was accepted. Meanwhile, the Government of India Act, 1919, provided for the setting up of a Public Service Commission. The Indian Civil Service examination was subsequently held in India as well, first in Allahabad and later in Delhi, while the examination in London continued. However, it took seven years for the Public Service Commission to be established.
On October 1, 1926, the Public Service Commission was finally set up, with Sir Ross Barker as its first Chairman. With the beginning of the Constitution on January 26, 1950, the Federal Public Service Commission was renamed the UPSC. Since Independence, a single combined annual competitive examination has replaced separate examinations for recruitment to the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Foreign Service (IFS), Indian Police Service (IPS), Indian Revenue Service (IRS) and other non-technical Central Services.
Today, the UPSC conducts around 250 recruitment exams every year, with the number of applications having grown from about 40,000 in its early years to nearly 40 lakh. Among these, the Civil Services Examination (CSE) remains the most sought-after. According to UPSC data, nearly 10 lakh aspirants applied for the CSE last year, which recruits candidates for the IAS, IFS, IPS and other Central Services in Group A and Group B. Fewer than 1,000 candidates were ultimately recommended for appointment, which is around 0.1%.
The enduring demand for these services has gone hand in hand with repeated changes to the selection process, such as the introduction of a Preliminary stage and the Civil Services Aptitude Test (CSAT) paper, the addition of papers in the Mains, and revisions to the interview and the foundational course training. But questions over transparency in its processes remain as the UPSC enters its second century. Can the Commission address these concerns?
R.A. Israel Jebasingh, a former IAS officer and founder and director of Officers IAS Academy, said the Commission has largely managed to keep its examinations free of leaks and conduct them according to a time-bound schedule. However, he said there are areas where greater transparency is needed, with certain processes within the Commission remaining relatively “opaque.” He pointed to the discontinuation, since 2018, of the practice of disclosing the detailed distribution of marks obtained by candidates recommended in the Civil Services (Main) Examination. There has been no public record explaining the decision to discontinue the practice.
Following a Supreme Court judgment, the UPSC will release provisional answer keys from 2026. Earlier, candidates had to wait until the examination cycle ended, often nearly a year, leaving no timely window to challenge questions. Even now, the final answer key will be published only after the final results. Mr. Jebasingh also wants the Commission to explain the reasoning behind disputed answers, particularly where multiple or no options are correct, and to give candidates access to their OMR sheets and evaluated answer papers. This, he says, would help aspirants understand their performance, especially as many spend years preparing.
Experts are also calling for greater transparency in how answers are evaluated. Two statistical techniques are commonly used by examining bodies to bring a common standard to marks: moderation, which reduces variability between examiners in a common paper or interview, and scaling, which places performances in different subjects on a common metric. The UPSC points to court judgements upholding its evaluation model.
K. Ashok Vardhan Shetty, a former IAS officer and former Vice-Chancellor of the Indian Maritime University, argues that the UPSC is not transparent about these techniques and should open them to public scrutiny without delay. Mr. Shetty further notes that median interview marks of General Candidates appear higher than those of reserved candidates (Other Backward Classes, Scheduled Castes, and Scheduled Tribes). While there could be several reasons, he says subtle bias based on caste or religion cannot be ruled out. He suggested that anonymity/name-blindness should be maintained for UPSC’s interviews also.
Mr. Shetty also said that there are reports of several ineligible candidates getting in through the Persons with Disabilities and Economically Weaker Sections categories. The UPSC should tighten the vetting in respect of these two categories, according to him.
(Bhaskar Basava is an independent journalist based in Hyderabad)