UPSC CDS 2019: Exam Dates, Application Form, Eligibility, Admit Card, Result, Answer Key

Introduction                                        

UPSC or Union Public Service Commission conducts the CDS or Combined Defense Services exam twice a year, categorized as CDS 1 and CDS 2. It is a national level exam, conducted to recruit eligible people for the defense services of the country. CDS grants admission in Indian Naval Academy, Indian Military Academy, Officers’ Training Academy, and Air Force Academy. The expected release date of official notification of CDS 2019 is around the 2^nd week of November 2018 for CDS 1 and around the 2^nd week of August 2019 for CDS 2.

Latest Update

Official notification regarding CDS 2 has not yet been released.

List of Contents:

Important Dates.

• Date of Examination.
• Mode of Examination.
• Medium of Answering.
• Eligibility Criteria.
• How to Apply?
  • Application Fee.
  • Documents to be Uploaded.
  • Application Process
• Admit Card.
• Examination Pattern.
• Answer Key.
• Selection Procedure.
• Important Links.

Important Dates

Following are some important dates (tentative) to be remembered for CDS 2019 Examination:

CDS 2019 Exam Date

The CDS exam 2019 (1) is expected be held in the first week of February 2019. The CDS exam 2019 (2) is expected be held in the first week of November 2019. 

Mode of Examination

The CDS 2019 is a pen and paper based offline mode of exam. OMR sheets shall be used as Answer Sheet. Candidates must use only Black ball pen for both writing and marking answers. Use of pencil and ink pen is prohibited.

Medium of Examination

The CDS 2019 examination is bilingual, that is, it will be conducted in two languages – English and Hindi.

Examination Centres (CDS1/2019)

Examination will be held in the following cities:

Agartala, Ahmedabad, Aizawa, Allahabad, Bengaluru, Bareilly, Bhopal, Chandigarh, Chennai, Cuttack, Dehradun, Delhi, Dharwad, Gangtok, Hyderabad, Imphal, Itanagar, Jaipur, Jammu, Jorhat, Kochi, Kohima, Kolkata, Lucknow, Madurai, Mumbai, Nagpur, Panaji, Patna, Port Blair, Raipur, Ranchi, Sambalpur, Shillong, Shimla, Srinagar, Thiruvananthapuram, Tirupati, Udaipur, Visakhapatnam.

Note:

(i) Allotment of centre will be on first apply first allot basis. Once capacity of one particular centre is attained, same shall be frozen.

(ii) Examination conducting body reserves the right to change the centre of examination at their discretion, if situation demands.

Vacancies

Total vacancies are 417 (tentatively). For detailed break up, please refer to notification released by UPSC dated 31 October 2018.

CDS 1/2019 Eligibility Criteria

The Eligibility Criteria for CDS 2019 Examination is:

Nationality

Candidate must belong to either of the following categories to be eligible for  CDS 1/ 2019:

• Citizen of India;
• Subjects of Nepal and Bhutan;
• A refugee from Tibet who came to India before 1^st January 1962, and intended to permanently settle here;
• Migrants from Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Burma, and East African Countries of Uganda, Kenya, the United Republic of Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Ethiopia, and Zaire or Vietnam who came to India with the intention of permanent settlement.
• Certificate of eligibility must be present with candidates who are not citizens of India.

Marital Status

The candidates should be unmarried to be eligible for CDS 1/2019.

(i) For IMA & Indian Naval Academy: Unmarried male candidate

(ii) For Air Force Academy: Candidate below 25 Years of age must be unmarried. Marriage is not permitted during training. Married candidates above 25 years are eligible to apply but during training neither they will be provided the married accommodation nor allowed to live with family out of premises.

Note : Male divorcee/widower aspirant candidates shall not be treated as un-married male for the purpose of admission in IMA/INA &, accordingly , they are not eligible for these courses.

Qualifying Exam

• Candidates should possess a bachelor’s degree from a recognised Institution/University or equivalent for OTA and IMA;
• Candidates applying for INA must have a degree in Engineering from a recognized Institution/University;
• Candidates applying for AFA must have degree of recognized (with Physics and Maths at 10+2 level) or Bachelor of Engineering.

Notes:

(i) Graduates with first choice as Army/Navy/Air Force are to submit proof of graduation or provisional degree on the date of commencement of interview at SSB.

(ii) Candidates who are studying in final year/final semester of any required degree course (as per laid down qualification norms) & yet to pass the degree can also apply provided candidate should not any backlog up to the last semester/year for which result has been declared.

Fitness

Candidates must by physically (as per laid down norms) and mentally fit.

Age Limit

(For CDS 1/ 2019)

• For IMA and INA: The candidate must be born between 2^nd January 1996 and 1^st January 2001.
• For OTA (Male): The candidate must be born between 2^nd January 1996 and 1^st January 2001.
• For OTA (Female): The candidate must be born between 2^nd July 1995 and 1^st July 2001.
• For AFA: The candidate must be born between 2^nd January 1996 and 1^st January 2000. Upper age limit is relaxable up to 26 years (i.e. born not earlier than 2^nd January 1994 and not later than 1^st January 2000) in respect of those candidates who are holding current and valid commercial pilot license issued by DGCA (INDIA).

For CDS 2/ 2019

• For IMA and INA: The candidate must be born between 2^nd July 1996 and 1^st July 2001.
• For OTA (Male): The candidate must be born between 2^nd July 1996 and 1^st July 2001.
• For OTA (Female): The candidate must be born between 2^nd July 1995 and 1^st July 2001.
• For AFA: The candidate must be born between 2^nd July 1996 and 1^st July
• Upper age limit is relaxable up to 26 years (i.e. born not earlier than 2^nd January 1994 and not later than 1^st July 2000) in respect of those candidates who are holding current and valid commercial pilot license issued by DGCA (INDIA).

CDS 2019 Application Form

• Candidates will have to fill the CDS 2019 application form and submit it via online mode only.
• The CDS 2019 application form will be made available on the official website of UPSC from 31 Oct 2018 for CDS 1 and in the month of August 2019 for CDS 2.
• Candidates will be allowed to fill and submit the CDS 2019 application form till the month of 26 Nov 2018 for CDS 1 and till the month of September 2019 for CDS 2.
• A print out of the CDS 2019 application form must be taken for future reference.

Application Fees

The fee for CDS 2019 application form is Rs. 200 only for the male general candidates while female candidates and the candidates from the reserved categories (i.e.SC/ST) are exempted from payment of the fee. OBC applicants are not exempted & are supposed to pay full fees.

N.B:

• Application Fee is neither transferable nor refundable under any circumstances.
• Application Fee can be submitted online via Credit Card, Debit Card or Net Banking or offline via SBI bank challan.
• Applications submitted without prescribed fees/mode (except for those applicants who have claimed remission of fees) shall summarily be rejected.

Documents to be Uploaded

The following documents must be kept at hand while filling the CDS 2019 application form:

• Scanned Photograph of the Candidate: JPG format – between 3-40 kb.
• Scanned Signature of the Candidate: JPG format – between 1-40 kb.

Steps of Applying

The broad steps for filling the CDS 2019 application form are as below:

• Visit the official website of UPSC, fill the required fields there, like name, father’s name, age, DOB, educational qualification, etc.
• Upload the photograph and signature in the format specified above.
• After filling all the necessary details, pay the application fees.
• Take a print out of the same for future reference.

CDS Admit Card 2019

Regarding the CDS admit card 2019, note the following points:

• The CDS admit card 2019 is likely to be made available from 13 January 2019 for CDS 1 and in the month of October 2019 for CDS 2.
• Only e-admit card will be made available on the official website through online mode only 3 weeks before the date of commencement of the examination.
• Candidates will have to enter their RID, DOB and registration number in order to download the CDS admit card 2019.
• Admit card will not be sent by post.
• Separate admit card will be provided for Interview and Personality Test.
• Candidates are required to enter the Examination Hall with their CDS admit card 2019, failing to do which they would not be allowed to sit for the exam.

CDS 2019 Exam Scheme

The CDS 2019 exam scheme is comprised of the following:-

(i)  Written Examination.

(ii) Interview for intelligence and personality test of candidates called for.

WRITTEN EXAMINATION:

(i) Duration of the examination will be 6 hours as per details tabulated below for:

Indian Military Academy (IMA)

Indian Naval Academy (INA)

Air Force Academy (AFA)

(ii) Duration of the examination will be 4 hours as per details tabulated below for:

Officers Training Academy (OTA).

NOTES:                                                                                                           

(i) Type of Questions: There will only be objective questions (MCQs).

(ii)  Total Marks: The total marks are 300 (200 for OTA).

(iii) Question papers (test booklet) of General Knowledge and Elementary Mathematics will be available.

Marking Scheme:

(i) All questions carry equal marks. 1/3 of the marks allotted to a question will be deducted for each wrong answer. There will be no negative marking for questions not attempted by the candidate.

(ii) If candidate gives more than one answer of any one question, it will be treated as a wrong answer even if one of the answers are correct. Further, there would be a penalty, as detailed in (i) above. 

INTERVIEW FOR INTELLIGENCE AND PERSONALITY TEST:

The test consists of two stage selection process:

Stage I: It comprises of Officer Intelligence Rating (OIR) and Picture Perception & Description Test (PP&DT). Candidates will be short listed for Stage II test based on combination of performance of OIR Test and PP&DT.

Stage II: It comprises of Interview, Group Testing Officer Tasks, Psychology Tests and the Conference. These tests will be conducted over 4 days. For details of these tests please visit: https://joinindianarmy.nic.in

Note: (i)  Interview will be of 300 marks for IMA, INA & AFA and of 200 marks for OTA.

(ii) Performance of the candidate is assessed holistically based on above tests.

CDS 2019 Answer Key

Regarding CDS answer key 2019, note the following:

• CDS answer key 2019 will be available on the official website of UPSC after the exam is over.
• The CDS answer key 2019 will contain all the correct answers to the questions asked.
• Students can tally their answers using the answer key.
• Candidates can download the CDS answer key 2019 from UPSC’s official website.
• Candidates can report any discrepancy in the answer key to the authority within a specified time period.

CDS 2019 Selection Procedure

About the CDS 2019 selection process, note the following:

(i) After the result declaration, the selection procedure of CDS 2019 will begin.

(ii) Candidates who are declared qualified in their written exam are required to register themselves on the RECRUITING DIRECTORATE on the website to receive call up for INTERVIEW.

(iii) The email ID registered on the website (www.joinindianarmy.nic.in) and with UPSC should be same and unique.

(iv) Selected candidates will go for document verification and medical tests.

(v) The final merit list will be prepared based on the marks obtained by the candidates in their written test as well as on their performance in the SSB test.                                                                                                                                    (vi) Final candidates will be selected on the basis of their written exam, interview, document verification and medical reports.

(vii) For more information, candidates may visit joinindianarmy.nic.in.

CDS Result 2019

Regarding the CDS result 2019, the following points may be noted:

CDS result 2019 is likely to be announced in the month of May 2019 for CDS 1 and in the month of February 2019 for CDS 2.

• The CDS result 2019 would be available on the official website of UPSC.
• No hard copy of the result will be sent to the candidates.
• The candidates must download their CDS result 2019 and keep a print out of the same for future reference.

Important Links

Following are some important links for CDS 2019 Examination:

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