West Bengal Civil Service (Executive), popularly known as W.B.C.S.(Exe), is the civil service of the Indian state of West Bengal. For the WBCS (Exe) and other comparative posts, Public Service Commission of West Bengal arranges competitive examinations in three phases every year. These phases are Preliminary, Mains and Personality Test.
There are different groups in recruitment of such examination based on choice and merit of scored number. These are Group A, Group B (only for West Bengal Police Service ), Group C and Group D. The WBCS (Exe) officers belong to Group A . In general, As per record of the WBPSC the candidates with higher scores opt for WBCS (Exe), WBPS and some allied services like erstwhile WBCTS etc as their first choice. Since 1988 some of the top ranked candidates have opted an allied service called WB commercial Tax Service (WBCTS) as their first choice due to less strenuous nature of the service and the lure of metro posting. Only WBCS (Exe) & WBCTS cadres are considered to be the State Civil Service by UPSC for direct promotion to IAS and WBPS officers are promoted to IPS after 7 to 9 years of service in state police service.
The WBCS (Exe) officers are usually appointed as deputy magistrates or deputy collectors on probation and after completion of two years of mandatory administrative training under the tutelage of Administrative Training Institute, start their career as Deputy Magistrate and Deputy Collector and Block Development (B.D.O.) Officers. They also pass order in Executive Magistrate Court and execute some sections of Criminal Procedure Code. The officers of the cadre perform the key administrative functions at different levels of various departments of the state. The highest position WBCS (Exe) officers can attain is that of Departmental secretary. Three posts of district magistrate in the State of West Bengal is reserved for these officers. WBCS (Exe) officers may also be nominated at a later stage of their career to become All India Services (IAS) officers.