<P> The Indian Civil Service (ICS) for part of the 19th century officially known as the Imperial Civil Service, was the elite higher civil service of the British Empire in British India during British rule in the period between 1858 and 1947 . </P> <P> Its members ruled more than 300 million people in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Burma (then comprising British Raj). They were ultimately responsible for overseeing all government activity in the 250 districts that comprised British India . They were appointed under Section XXXII of the Government of India Act 1858, enacted by the Parliament of the United Kingdom . The ICS was headed by the Secretary of State for India, a member of the British cabinet . </P> <P> At first almost all the top thousand members of the ICS, known as "Civilians", were British, and had been educated in the best British schools . By 1905, five per cent were from Bengal . In 1947 there were 322 Indians and 688 British members; most of the latter left at the time of partition and independence . </P> <P> Until the 1930s the Indians in the service were very few and were not given high posts by the British . Wainwright notes that by the mid-1880s, "the basis of racial discrimination in the sub-continent had solidified". </P>

The first civil service commission in india was set up on the basis of recommendation of