Are IGNOU materials really beneficial for UPSC preparation? Where can I download them for free?

IGNOU course material is useful for preparation, but it is not of the highest quality in some subject areas. IGNOU Literature, Social Science, and Science stream books are excellent for preparing for the UPSC civil services examination, but Mathematics stream books are not.

You can get the books from IGNOU's official book archive, eGyankosh. Here, you must first create a login ID and password combination, and then click the "enter your search query" option in the website's search option for the desired search process.

However, there is a disadvantage in that on the eGyankosh website, chapter-by-chapter downloading options are available rather than whole-book downloading, which requires significantly more effort than usual.