Bihar Recommends Non-Administrative State Services Officers For IAS Cadre

Incidentally, by recommending the names of two non-administrative state services officers to the IAS cadre, Bihar follows suit after Rajasthan. 

However, this window of opportunity excludes officers from the Bihar Administrative Service (BAS), the Bihar Police Service (BPS), and the Bihar Forest Service (BFS). Instead, the State government will consider officers from all other gazetted cadres, including doctors, engineers, and officers from technical and other specialised services.

According to sources in the Bihar government, officers belonging to the Medical and Health Services (Doctors), Engineering Services, Information Service, Finance Service, Labour Service, Cooperative Service, and other gazetted cadres of the government services will be eligible for consideration.

Recommendations Sought

Following the government's decision, the General Administration Department (GAD) formally sought recommendations from the heads of all State government departments.

The departments have also been asked to identify officers with outstanding service records. According to sources, names of the recommended officers would be forwarded to the Department of Personnel & Training (Union government) for perusal. Once approved by the Centre, the selected officers would join the IAS cadre, sources said.

Eligibility Criteria

As per the guidelines stipulated by the State government, clear eligibility conditions have been stipulated for officers. These include:

• The officers must have at least eight years of service as a gazetted officer,
• They must be below 56 years of age (as on January 1, 2025);
• And must demonstrate an outstanding service record

The induction of non-administrative officers into the IAS cadre is considered rare and highly selective. Such appointments are usually made to acknowledge exceptional contributions to public service, policy implementation, or technical governance

- A senior official

The official added that the move reflects the Bihar government’s intent to reward merit, professionalism, and long-standing service, regardless of cadre background.

Experts in administrative matters opine that the decision would encourage excellence across technical and professional services, strengthening governance by bringing domain experts into senior decision-making roles.