Usually, online form fill up begins for WBCS in the month of November. Preliminary Exam is held in the Last week of January or first week of February at different cities of West Bengal. Post the publication of Preliminary results, Mains Exams are held in June–July in some selected institutions of Kolkata city and at the office of WBPSC. The candidates who passed in Mains are called for Personality test. At last, a selection list is issued by PSC consisting the name of qualified candidates of Mains Exams and Personality test. All these processes take up to one and a half year.
Recruitment
There are different groups in recruitment of such examination based on choice and merit of scored number. These are Group A, Group B, Group C and Group D. The WBCS officers belong to Group A. In general, As per record of the WBPSC the candidates with higher scores opt for WBCS, WBPS and some allied services like erstwhile WBCTS etc as their first choice. Since 1988 some of the top ranked candidates have opted an allied service called WB commercial Tax Service as their first choice due to less strenuous nature of the service and the lure of metro posting. Only WBCS & WBCTS cadres are considered to be the State Civil Service by UPSC for direct promotion to IAS and WBPS officers are promoted to IPS after 7 to 9 years of service in state police service.
Functions
The WBCS officers are usually appointed as deputy magistrates or deputy collectors on probation and after completion of two years of mandatory administrative training under the tutelage of Administrative Training Institute, start their career as Deputy Magistrate and Deputy Collector and Block Development Officers. They also pass order in Executive MagistrateCourt and execute some sections of Criminal Procedure Code. The officers of the cadre perform the key administrative functions at different levels of various departments of the state. The highest position WBCS officers can attain is that of Departmental secretary. Three posts of district magistrate in the State of West Bengal is reserved for these officers. WBCS officers may also be nominated at a later stage of their career to become Indian Administrative Services officers.
