The Engineering Services (Preliminary) Examination-2025 to select officers of different central services will be conducted on June 8, the Union Public Service Commission has said.

The Commission had last month postponed the examination to give sufficient time to the aspirants for preparation following a change in scheme for the recruitment of the Indian Railway Management Service (IRMS) officers.

The move followed the government's decision to conduct the recruitment to the IRMS through both the Civil Services Examinations and the Engineering Services Examination (ESE).

The ESE Preliminary/Stage-I test was scheduled to be held by the UPSC on February 9, 2025. Now, it will be conducted on June 8, 2025, according to the time table of the examination issued by the Commission.

The government has decided that the recruitment to the IRMS will be made through both the Civil Services Examinations (for Traffic, Accounts and Personnel sub-cadres) and ESE (for Civil, Electrical, Mechanical, Signal & Telecommunication and Stores sub-cadres).

The Ministry of Railways has also notified the Indian Railway Management Service (Amendment) Rules, 2024 on October 9, 2024.

The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi had in 2019 approved the unification of eight Group A services of the railways into a central service -- the IRMS.

The services were the Indian Railway Traffic Service, Indian Railway Accounts Service, Indian Railway Personnel Service, Indian Railway Service of Engineers, Indian Railway Stores Service, Indian Railway Service of Mechanical Engineers, Indian Railway Service of Electrical Engineers and Indian Railway Service of Signal Engineers.

The officers for IRMS (Civil), IRMS (Stores), IRMS (Mechanical), IRMS (Electrical) and IRMS (Signal and Telecommunications) will be selected via ESE 2025, according to the UPSC.