Q.Match: works within particular State / works in central govt office anywhere / works in State, can be deputed to centre / works in Indian missions abroad — against: Indian Foreign Service / State Civil Services / All India Services / Central Services.

Alongside the Prime Minister and ministers (the political executive), every modern government also has a large, permanent organisation of trained officials that actually implements ministers' decisions — this is called the bureaucracy, the administrative machinery, or (to distinguish it from military service) the civil service.

In a democracy, elected representatives and ministers are meant to be in overall charge of government, with the administration functioning under their control and supervision; in a parliamentary system, the legislature also exercises control over administration, and administrative officers cannot lawfully act against policies adopted by the legislature. It is the responsibility of ministers to retain political control over the administration they head. At the same time, the bureaucracy is expected to remain politically neutral — civil servants are not meant to take political positions on policy matters, precisely so that when a party loses power and a new government wants different policies, the same administrative machinery can faithfully and efficiently implement whatever the new government decides.

India's bureaucracy today is an enormously complex system, made up of the All-India Services, State Services, employees of local governments, and the technical and managerial staff running public sector undertakings. The Constitution's makers wanted a non-partisan, professional bureaucracy, with civil servants selected impartially on merit — so the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) was entrusted with recruiting civil servants for the Government of India, with similar Public Service Commissions provided for each State. Members of these Commissions serve fixed terms, and can only be removed or suspended after a thorough enquiry conducted by a Supreme Court judge. Alongside merit-based recruitment, the Constitution also provides reservation in civil service jobs — originally for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, and subsequently extended to women, Other Backward Classes (OBC), and Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) — to ensure the bureaucracy remains representative and that social inequality doesn't become a barrier to entering public service.

India's civil services are classified into three groups: All India Services (the Indian Administrative Service/IAS and the Indian Police Service/IPS), Central Services (such as the Indian Foreign Service and the Indian Customs Service), and State Services (the Provincial Civil Service of each State). IAS and IPS officers, selected by the UPSC, form the backbone of high-level bureaucracy in the States — for example, a district Collector, normally an IAS officer, is the most important government officer at the district level, governed by service conditions set by the central government. An important structural feature: although an IAS or IPS officer is assigned to work in a particular State (under that State government's day-to-day supervision), these officers are appointed by the central government, can be brought back into central service, and — crucially — only the central government can take disciplinary action against them. This means the key administrative officers running State administration remain, in an important sense, under central government supervision — a feature that strengthens central control over the States (relevant when studying Indian federalism). Beyond IAS/IPS officers, State administration is also staffed by officers recruited through the respective State Public Service Commissions.

The bureaucracy is the instrument through which the government's welfare policies are actually meant to reach ordinary people — but it is often so powerful that citizens become afraid to approach a government officer, and it is a common experience that the bureaucracy can be insensitive to the demands and expectations of the ordinary person. Democratic control by the elected government can help address this; but too much political interference, in the other direction, risks turning the bureaucracy into an instrument in the hands of individual politicians. Though the Constitution has created independent recruitment machinery, many feel there aren't sufficient provisions protecting civil servants from political interference, or ensuring the bureaucracy's accountability to ordinary citizens. Measures like the Right to Information (RTI) are seen as a step toward making the bureaucracy a little more responsive and accountable to the people it serves.