The Civil Services of India (known simply as the Civil Services) refer to the civil service and the permanent bureaucracy of the Government of India. The civil service system is the backbone of the administrative machinery of the country.
The Indian Civil Service (ICS) for part of the 19th century officially known as the Imperial Civil Service, was the élite higher civil service of the British Empire in British India during British rule in the period between 1858 and 1947.