New Delhi: Women candidates have bagged all the three top slots in the prestigious Civil Services examination to select IAS and IPS officers among others.

Ira Singhal has topped the examination followed by Renu Raj and Nidhi Gupta, who have secured second and third positions respectively, according to the results announced by Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) on Saturday.

Ira and Nidhi, who hail from Delhi, are Indian Revenue Service (Customs and Central Excise) officers whereas, Renu Raj is a doctor by profession. She hails from Kerala.

"I am really very happy. I can't believe this. I just prepared for the examination," Ira told PTI.

Ira topped the exam in general category despite being physically handicapped. "I want to be an IAS officer. I want to do something for the benefit of physically-handicapped people," she said.

Renu Raj got the second rank in her first attempt. "I am extremely happy to know the result. I have been preparing for the exam for the last one year," she told PTI from Thiruvananthapuram.

Renu Raj, who works in a hospital in Kollam in Kerala, hails from Kottayam.

Third rank holder Nidhi said it is a proud moment for her to get selected in the examination. "It is really a proud moment. I put in lot of hard work and finally it paid," she said. Nidhi is presently Assistant Commissioner of Customs and Central Excise.

A total number of 1,236 candidates, including 590 in General category, 354 belonging to Other Backward Class, 194 from Scheduled Caste and 98 from Scheduled Tribe, have been recommended for appointment to various central government services, the UPSC said.

A total of 1,364 posts are to be filled through the civil services examination.There are 254 other candidates in the waiting list.

It is the first time that the Commission has declared the final results on the fourth day of the closing date for the personality tests or interviews, a senior UPSC official said.

The civil services examination is conducted by the UPSC annually in three stages -- preliminary, mains and interviews-- to select candidates for the elite Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Foreign Service (IFS) and Indian Police Service (IPS), among others.

The civil services preliminary examination was conducted on August 24 last year at 2,137 venues in 59 centres across the country. About 9.45 lakh candidates had applied for it but approximately 4.51 lakh appeared for the examination.

Of these, 16,933 were declared qualified for the main examination, the official said. The main examination was held in December last year and, out of the 16,933 candidates, 16,286 appeared for it, he said.

The result of civil services main examination was declared on March 13, this year. 3,308 candidates were declared qualified for the personality test. Of these, 3,303 appeared for the personality test, which were held from April 27 to June 30, the official said.

"In terms of the number of candidates and number of centres or sub-centres, this was the biggest examination ever conducted by the Commission," he said.