UPSC CDS 2024 – UPSE CDS schedule has been released and the exam will be conducted on 21 April and 01 September 2024. If aspirants have a passion to serve the country and they are looking for a golden opportunity, then the CDS exam is the best for them. Through the CDS exam, candidates get a golden opportunity to be part of the Army team of the Indian Navy, Indian Air Force, and Indian Military. Every year, more than four lakh candidates fill out CDS exam form, out of which very few are selected. The CDS exam is conducted twice a year. In this article, we will discuss complete details about CDS.
What is CDS?
CDS Exam is the second major examination of the Indian Army conducted by UPSC (Union Public Service Commission) after NDA (National Defense Academy) through which officers are selected for all three services. CDS stands for Combined Defense Service and this means “samlet Raksha Seva”.Candidates selected on the basis of written examination and interview are sent to the below places for training of one and a half years.
- Indian Military Academy, Dehradun (IMA)
- Indian Naval Academy, Goa (INA)
- Officer training academy, Chennai (OTA)
- Indian Air Force Academy, Hyderabad (AFA)
UPSC CDS 2024 Important Links
Candidates can use the given link as per their needs. If the candidate faces any problem like the admit card not being downloaded, then they can contact the help desk. To stay alert to all new notifications and updates, they can visit the official website regularly. And if even after reading the article, there is doubt in their mind, then they can ask by comment or they can read the information bulletin.
| Official Website of UPSC | Click Here |
| Official website of Indian Navy | Click Here |
| Information bulletin | Click Here |
| Frequently Asked Questions | Click Here |
| UPSC Helpline | Click Here |
| Indian Navy Helpline | Click Here |
CDS Exam 2024 Important Dates
The CDS exam is conducted twice a year, once in February and the second time in September. Both schedules are given below and candidates have to proceed accordingly.
| CDS Events | CDS (I) 2024 Dates | CDS (II) 2023 Dates (Tentative) |
| Release of notification | 20 December 2023 | 15 May 2024 |
| Start of the Application process | 09 January 2024 | 04 June 2024 |
| CDS Exam date | 21 April 2024 | 01 September 2024 |
| Release of Admit Card | March 2023 | To Be Announced |
| Declaration of Written Test Result | May 2023 | To Be Announced |
UPSC CDS Exam 2024 Eligibility Criteria
Eligibility criteria for Indian Military Academy, Indian Air Force Academy, Indian Naval Academy, and officers training academy are slightly different from each other. All the eligibility criteria are given below.
Nationality
- The candidate should have citizenship in India/Nepal/Bhutan.
Age Criteria
- For IMA and INA, The age of the candidates should be 18 to 23 years while Applying and 19 to 24 years during joining.
- For AFA, The age of the candidates should be 19 to 23 years while Applying and 20 to 24 years during joining.
Note – Those who hold a commercial pilot license, issued by the DGCA, get 2-year age relaxation.
- For OTA, The age of the candidates should be 18 to 24 years while Applying and 19 to 25 years during joining.
Note – only class 10th mark sheets or certificates are valid for the date of birth proof.
Gender
- For IMA, AFA & INA, only Make candidates are eligible.
- For OTA, Both male and female candidates are eligible.
Education Qualification
- For IMA & OTA, The candidates should have graduated in any stream from any recognized institution.
- For AFA, The candidates should have graduated in any stream from any recognized institution.
- Candidates must have studied Math and Physics at a 10+2 level.
- For INA, the Candidate should have a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering.
Note – No minimum marks are needed in the qualifying exams and the final year is also eligible to apply.
Martial Status
- For IMA & INA, candidates must be unmarried.
- For AFA, Both married & unmarried candidates are eligible.
Note – Candidates who are more than 25 years old can get married but they cannot live with their families during training.
- For OTA, Both married & unmarried male candidates are eligible.
- Un-married, issueless divorce & issueless widow female candidates are eligible.
Medical criteria for all Academy
- Both male and female Candidates must be physically and mentally fit.
Height requirements for male
- For IMA, 157.5 cm
- For AFA, 162. 5 cm
- For INA, 157 cm
Height requirement for female
- For OTA, 152 cm
- Weight is according to the height-weight ratio chart
Vision Criteria
| Vision Standard | For Naval Candidates | Air force candidates | For Indian Army Candidates |
| Uncorrected without Glasses | 6/12,6/12 | 6/6,6/9 | 6/60,6/60 |
| Corrected with Glasses | 6/6,6/6 | 6/6,6/6 (Only for hypermetropia) | 6/6,6/6 |
| Limits of myopia | -1.5D | -0.5D | -3.5D |
| Limits of Hypermetropia | +1.5D | +2.0D | +3.5D |
| Binocular Vision | III | – | III |
| Binocular VisiColour perception | I | – | CP-III on: III |
| Colour Vision | – | CP-I | – |
CDS Exam Selection Procedure
Selection is done on the basis of a written exam and interview. Let us know in detail about the written exam.
For the written examination, firstly the candidates have to fill out the application form. Now your admit card will come, after that you have to go for the exam.
The exam takes place in 3 steps. First, there will be an English exam and then you will get 1 hour’s rest. Then there will be the GK exam and after that, you will get 1-hour rest. Then there will be the Elementary Mathematics exam. OTA candidates do not need to attend an Exam in elementary mathematics. The result comes after about 2 months of the exam.
The candidate who qualifies for the written test is called for the Intelligent Test and Personality Test. This test should be done by the candidate properly as it also has negative markings.
After qualifying for the test, you are given 2 weeks to register on the Indian Navy website. If you are already registered, you do not need to register again.
Those who qualify for this test are called for an SSB interview.
- After approximately 1 month, AFA candidates are given 7 days time to select SSB dates.
- Approximately After 2 months, IMA & INA candidates are given 7 days time to select SSB dates.
- After approximately 3 months, OTA candidates are given 7 days time to select SSB dates.
Note – If the candidates do not select the date, then the date is allotted to them by the SSB conducting authority, which does not change at any cost.
SSB Centres
SSB Centers are located in different cities for different army interviews. The candidate can know by the following table.
| S.No. | For Indian Army | For Indian Air Force | For Indian Navy |
| 1. | Allahabad | Dehradun | Bangalore |
| 2. | Bhopal Coimbatore | Mysore | Bhopal Coimbatore |
| 3. | Vishakhapatnam | Gandhinagar | Vishakhapatnam |
| 4. | Kolkata | Varanasi | Kolkata |
SSB Interview Process
This is an overview of the SSB Interview.
- Stage I (Screening)
- Officers Intelligence and Rating Test
- Picture Perception and Discussion Test
- Stage II
- Psychological Tests
- GTO Test
- Personal Interview
- Conference
UPSC CDS 2024 Application Form
The application will be filled out online from the official website of UPSC. First candidates have to register and then fill out the entire application form. The candidate has to fill in the details such as personal details, Academic details, Qualification details, and Communication details, and after that Candidate has to upload the required documents and then has to pay the application fee which is 200/- for general and OBC. For SC/ST/Women, the Application fee is zero. Don’t forget to take a printout of the application form.
UPSC CDS 2024 Exam Pattern
All three Exams will be conducted on Single days. 1-hour rest between All Three Exams. No. of Questions and timing are different for all three. Exam patterns are given below.
- The exam will be offline on OMR Sheet
- The question paper will be available in Both Hindi and English Language.
- Objective-type Questions will be asked in the exam.
- Duration of Exam 2 hours for each paper.
- The whole paper will be 100 marks
- 1/3 negative marking
- No. of Question
- 120 Questions will be asked in the English exam.
- 120 Questions will be asked in the General Knowledge exam.
- 100 Questions will be asked in Mathematics Exam.
- Timing’s
- English = 09:00 A.M. to 11.00 A.M.
- GK = 12:00 Noon to 02:00 P.M.
- Mathematics = 03:00 P.M. to 05:00 P.M.
UPSC CDS 2024 Syllabus
The questions asked in English and General Knowledge exams are of graduation level. Questioning in Elementary Mathematics is asked at the high school level. The syllabus for both subjects is given below.
English
- Sentence improvement
- Reading comprehension
- Synonyms and Antonyms
- One word substitution
- Para jumbled
- Sentences jumble
- Spot the error
- Cloze test etc
General Knowledge
- History
- Geography
- General Science
- Indian constitution
- Indian economy
- Current affair
- Indian politics
- Indian Navy & Military
- Religions
- Books and authors
- Sports and awards etc
Elementary Mathematics
- Arithmetic
- Algebra
- Trigonometry
- Geometry
- Mensuration
- Statistics
UPSC CDS Exam Centre
Exam Centers for the written examinations are located in these 41 cities. The list is given below.
| Agartala | Ahmedabad | Aizawl |
| Bengaluru | Bareilly | Bhopal |
| Chandigarh | Chennai | Cuttack |
| Dehradun | Delhi | Dharwad |
| Dispur | Gangtok | Hyderabad |
| Imphal | Itanagar | Jaipur |
| Jammu | Jorhat | Kochi |
| Kohima | Kolkata | Lucknow |
| Madurai | Mumbai | Nagpur |
| Panaji (Goa) | Patna | Port Blair |
| Prayagraj (Allahabad) | Raipur | Ranchi |
| Sambalpur | Shillong | Shimla |
| Srinagar | Thiruvananthapuram | Tirupati |
| Udaipur | Visakhapatnam | – |
CDS 2024 Salary and promotion
Here is given all the details like pay scale, MSP, Grade pay, etc along with the final Salary.
| Rank | Grade Pay | Pay Bands/Scale | MSP | Final Salary |
| Lieutenant | 5400 | PB-3/15600-39100 | 6,000 | 40,000-90,000 |
| Captain | 6100 | PB-3/15600-39100 | 6,000 | 90,000-1,00,000 |
| Major | 6600 | PB-3/15600-39100 | 6,000 | 1,00,000-1,25,000 |
| Lt Colonel | 8000 | PB-4/37400-67000 | 6,000 | 1,25,000-1,50,000 |
| Colonel | 8700 | PB-4/37400-67000 | 6,000 | 1,50,000-1,75,000 |
| Brigadier | 8900 | PB-4/37400-67000 | 6,000 | 1,75,000-2,00,000 |
| Major General | 10000 | PB-4/37400-67000 | NIL | 2,00,000-2,50,000 |
Pay and Allowance
- Medical Allowance
- Canteen Facility
- Dearness Allowance
- Kit maintenance allowance
- Siachen Allowance
- Uniform Allowance
- Transport Allowance
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