Last checked against official sources on 20 Aug 2026.
The Assam Civil Service and the Assam Police Service are the top of the state government career ladder, and there is exactly one way in: the Combined Competitive Examination conducted by the Assam Public Service Commission (APSC), Jawaharnagar, Khanapara, Guwahati 781022. This guide covers what the CCE fills, how the two stages work, and what the exam honestly demands.
আজিৰ পৰাই প্ৰস্তুতি আৰম্ভ কৰক।
What the CCE actually fills
The CCE is not one job. Under the Assam Public Services Combined Competitive Examination Rules, the Commission holds the examination for a schedule of services that includes:
- Assam Civil Service (Jr. Grade), the ACS
- Assam Police Service (Jr. Grade), the APS
- Assam Land and Revenue Service (Jr. Grade)
- Labour Officer, Superintendent of Taxes, Superintendent of Excise
- Assistant Registrar of Cooperative Societies, District Transport Officer
- Block Development Officer, Sub-Registrar, Finance and Accounts Officer or Treasury Officer
- and other services listed in the schedule, more than twenty in all
You give one set of preferences and your rank decides which service you get. ACS and APS are the ones everyone names, and they are also the ones that go to the very top of the list.
The two stages
The Commission holds the CCE in two stages: Preliminary Examination and Main Examination. The Preliminary is a screening test. Its marks do not count towards your final rank; it only decides who writes the Mains.
Preliminary Examination
| General Studies I | 200 marks, 2 hours, objective type. Between 30 and 35 percent of the questions are compulsorily related to Assam. |
| General Studies II | 200 marks, 2 hours, objective type. Qualifying in nature, with a minimum qualifying mark of 33 percent. |
Read that second row carefully, because candidates lose years to it. GS-II is qualifying. You must clear 33 percent in it, but your merit for the Prelims cut-off rests on GS-I. Neglecting GS-II is fatal, over-investing in it is wasteful.
Main Examination
| Paper 1 | Essay, 250 marks, 3 hours. |
| Papers 2 to 6 | General Studies, 250 marks each, 3 hours each. Paper 6 is the General Subject Paper on Assam. |
| Written total | 1,500 marks. |
| Interview | 180 marks, after qualifying in the written examination. |
| Grand total | 1,680 marks. |
The Commission’s scheme page also lists optional subjects for Papers 7 and 8, covering everything from Agriculture and Anthropology to Assamese, Law, Physics and Zoology. Whether optionals apply to your year is exactly the kind of thing that changes between cycles, so confirm the paper list in the advertisement for your CCE year before you choose a subject.
Eligibility: read the advertisement, not a coaching page
STRAIGHT ANSWER
We are not going to invent numbers. The age limit, the number of attempts allowed and the exact educational qualification for the CCE are stated in each CCE advertisement. APSC publishes those advertisements as scanned PDFs, which we could not read as machine text while checking this page, so we are not quoting an age or an attempt limit here. Open the current CCE advertisement on apsc.nic.in and read the eligibility paragraph yourself. If a website quotes you a precise age limit without linking the advertisement, treat it as unverified.
What we can tell you from documents we did read: APSC requires that you be an Indian citizen as defined in Articles 5 to 8 of the Constitution and a permanent resident of Assam, with a Permanent Resident Certificate issued in Assam or an Employment Exchange Registration Certificate as proof of residency. Applications are made through the online recruitment portal, and age, caste and minimum educational qualification certificates are fetched from your One Time Registration profile, so keep that profile correct and updated.
The path, step by step
flowchart TD
s0["Complete your One Time Registration"]
s1["Read the CCE advertisement the day it appears"]
s2["Build the Assam base first"]
s3["Clear GS-II to 33 percent, reliably"]
s4["Start writing before you finish reading"]
s5["Practise the Assam paper separately"]
s6["Prepare for the interview as its own 180 marks"]
s0 --> s1
s1 --> s2
s2 --> s3
s3 --> s4
s4 --> s5
s5 --> s6
- Complete your One Time Registration on the APSC recruitment portal and keep the documents in it current. Every application pulls from it.
- Read the CCE advertisement the day it appears on apsc.nic.in. Age, attempts, qualification, fee and dates are all there and they are what count.
- Build the Assam base first. Between 30 and 35 percent of GS-I is compulsorily about Assam. That is the highest return topic in the entire syllabus and the one an outsider cannot beat you at.
- Clear GS-II to 33 percent, reliably. Treat it as a floor to cross, not a race to win.
- Start writing before you finish reading. The Mains is 1,500 marks of writing in six three hour papers. Reading more books does not build that hand or that clock sense.
- Practise the Assam paper separately. Paper 6 of the Mains is a full 250 mark General Subject Paper on Assam. Nobody else’s notes will cover it properly.
- Prepare for the interview as its own 180 marks, on your own district, your own graduation subject and current Assam issues.
How competitive it honestly is
The CCE is the prestige route, and prestige has a price. The Commission advertises a fixed and usually small number of posts per cycle across all the services, and every graduate in the state who wants a government career applies. The candidates who clear it are usually the ones who treated it as a two to three year project, wrote answers every week, and knew Assam cold.
There is one thing that genuinely favours a small town aspirant here. The past papers are all public. APSC keeps CCE Preliminary question papers on its own site going back many years, with answer keys for the recent ones, plus Mains papers and sample question cum answer booklets. That archive is a better guide to what gets asked than any guess, and it costs nothing.
Practical advice: do not make the CCE your only plan while you prepare. The same reading builds your ADRE Grade III paper and any APSC direct recruitment post you sit. Keep applying, keep clearing, and let the CCE take the years it takes.
Sources
Verified on 20 Aug 2026 against these official documents:
- APSC scheme of examination for the Combined Competitive Examination, Preliminary and Main, including marks, duration, the 30 to 35 percent Assam share in GS-I, the 33 percent qualifying mark in GS-II, and the 1,500 plus 180 equals 1,680 mark structure: apsc.nic.in/cce.html
- All CCE Amendment Rules, as published in the Assam Gazette, listing the two stages and the schedule of services filled through the CCE: apsc.nic.in/misc_2025/CCE_Amendment_Rules_ALL.pdf
- Assam Public Services Combined Competitive Examination (Amendment) Rules, 2019, Personnel Department, Government of Assam: personnel.assam.gov.in (APSC Rules 2019 PDF)
- APSC selection procedure for direct recruitment, and the current CCE advertisement listing: apsc.nic.in/dr_scheme.php and apsc.nic.in/advt_2026.php
Age limits, attempt limits, the paper list and the number of posts change from cycle to cycle, and we have deliberately not quoted an age or attempt limit because we could not verify one from a machine-readable official document. The official notification always wins over anything written here. Uttirno is an independent preparation platform and is not affiliated with APSC.