Union Minister Bhupender Yadav presided as Chief Guest at the convocation ceremony of the 2024 batch of Indian Forest Service probationers at Indira Gandhi National Forest Academy (IGNFA), Dehradun. He presented certificates and medals to graduating IFS officers. IGNFA is the apex training institution for IFS officers under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. The IFS is one of three All India Services, alongside IAS and IPS, constituted under Article 312 of the Constitution.

The Indian Forest Service (IFS) is one of the three All India Services of India — the other two being the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and the Indian Police Service (IPS). All India Services are constituted under Article 312 of the Indian Constitution, which empowers Parliament to create new All India Services if the Rajya Sabha passes a resolution by two-thirds majority.

IFS officers are recruited through the UPSC Civil Services Examination and undergo foundational and professional training at the Indira Gandhi National Forest Academy (IGNFA), located in Dehradun, Uttarakhand. IGNFA functions under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC).

The IFS was constituted in 1966 under the All India Services Act, 1951, making it the youngest of the three All India Services. IFS officers manage India's forest resources, wildlife, and biodiversity, and are cadre-allocated to state governments while remaining under central oversight.

For UPSC aspirants, the examiner frequently tests: the constitutional provision enabling All India Services, the distinction between the three services, the ministry overseeing IFS, and the institutional framework for their training. The IGNFA connection — its location, ministry, and function — is a standard distractor-level satellite fact that differentiates prepared aspirants from surface-level readers.