Indian Forest Services - 2020

Indian Forest Service (IFoS) is different from Indian Foreign Service (IFS). It is one of the civil services conducted by UPSC. For the recruitment of officers at the All India level for scientific management of forests. It is one of the three All India services. Others are IAS and IPS. IFoS service officers are placed under various state cadres and joint cadres. They have to serve both under state and central governments.

Indian Forest Services examination -2020

The selection procedure is in three stages.

1) Preliminary 2) Mains 3) Personality Test

Candidates have to appear Civil services preliminary examinations and qualify for the second phase- Mains. They will be short listed for Mains. It is a common application form online for Civil services and Forest services. The following are the dates:

I FoS notification – 12th February 2020

Last Date for application – 3rd March 2020

Prelims exam along with civils – 26th June 2020 Friday

FoS Main examination – 2nd Nov 2020 (10 days)

Total No.of vacancies will be around—90 to 100 every year

Educational qualifications

Bachelor's degree in Animal husbandry and Veterinary science, Botany, Chemistry, Geology, mathematics, Physics, statistics and Zoology. Or BSc Agriculture or Forestry or Engineering

Age: Minimum 21 years, Maximum 32 years as on 1st august 2020. The age relaxations for other categories are same like Civils examination.

Number of attempts

General candidates - 6 attempts

SC, ST – No restriction

OBCs – 9 attempts others as usual

Optional subjects

After Civil Services (Preliminary) examination, the shortlisted candidates will be called for the Main examination, which will be about 12 to 13 times of the total number of vacancies i.e: 1080.

Candidates have to select two optional subjects

1. Agriculture Agricultural engineering

2. Chemistry Botany

3. Civil engineering chemical Engineering

4. Geology Mathematics

5. Mechanical engineering Physics

6. Statistics Zoology

Mains examination pattern is as follows

Paper I General English - 300 marks

Paper II General Knowledge- 300 marks

Paper III to VI Two optionals x2 - 800 marks Total 1400 marks

Candidate has to choose two optionals from the above list.

UPSC cut off marks -2018

UPSC has released the cut off marks for IFoS examination. The examination was conducted for 110 vacancies.

Minimum qualifying standards/marks approved in the written part of the exam 2018:

Category Marks for 1400

General 669

OBC 596

SC 595

ST 587

PwBD -2 541

Pw BD -3 447

Marks secured by the last finally recommended candidate:

Category Marks for 1400

General 904

OBC 585

SC 595

ST 798

Pw BD-2 787

Pw BD-3 693

A total of 89 candidates that include general, SC, and ST categories have been recommended for appointment.

The Forest officers play a key role in conservation, protection, and development of forests and wildlife, enhancing livelihood opportunities of forest dependent communities of rural and tribal areas at present time. Their role is going to increase further.

The service comes under Ministry of Environment, Forests and climate change. From 2008 onwards IFoS officers are allotted to State cadre at the beginning of their service.

Cadres strength : 3131

(2182 Direct recruits, and 940 promotion posts)

The highest post is Director General of Forests. The general nature of these officers is administration of Forests and wildlife resources.

Newly recruited officers are trained at Indira Gandhi National Forest academy, Dehradun. Indian Forest College was established in 1938. From 1987 it is functioning as a Staff college for the officers of IFoS. The primary mandate of the Academy is to impart knowledge and skills to the professional foresters and help them to develop competence for managing the country's forest and wildlife resources on a sustainable basis. It nurtures young foresters capable of making difference in the management of ecological assets of our country besides inculcating human values and professional ethics amongst them. The Academy provides training at different levels of seniority in the service besides training the new entrants.

Mid-career training programmes in three phases of the service viz III, IV, and V meant for the seniority 7to 9, 16 to 18 and 26 to 28 years respectively are arranged by the academy. It aims to provide best training opportunities to the officers by roping in some of the leading training institutions in the country and abroad. The officers get a chance to interact with the experts of respective fields and also get exposure to best management practices of natural r sources in the foreign countries.