It was his sheer determination and ambition that helped Potru Goutham from Krishna district to bag the 30{+t}{+h}rank in the Civil Services Examination 2014, the results of which were declared on Saturday. Born in a farmer’s family at Gullapudi village of Gampalagudem mandal, P. Goutham is presently undergoing training in the Indian Revenue Service (Income Tax) at Nagpur. He had bagged the 318th rank in the Civil Services exam last year.
“He always wanted to be an IPS or an IAS officer. This was his fourth attempt. In the first two attempts he did not even qualify but that did not discourage him. I am proud that he made it,” says Potru Murali, father of Goutham.
Mr. Murali said Goutham never attended any coaching classes, preferring instead to read books and newspapers. He was a Telugu medium student till the 10th standard and bagged an engineering seat in the Dhirubhai Ambani College in Gujarat. “It was during his B. Tech final year that he informed us of his dream to be an IAS or IPS officer,” said Mr. Murali.
Amalapuram’s Krishnam Naidu Kommula secured the 284{+t}{+h}rank in his fourth attempt. “After undergoing coaching for a few subjects in New Delhi, I preferred self-study. All the material is available on the internet,” said Mr. Krishnam Naidu.
Vijayawada resident Kanda Pradeep Babu bagged the 1095{+t}{+h}rank in his second attempt. Pradeep Babu’s father K. Bhasker Babu served as a sepoy in the army. After completing his M. Tech from the Vellore Institute of Technology, he went to Spain for research but had to come back to take care of his family.
“After failing in the first attempt, I was a bit down. This time I worked out a plan and studied accordingly for about eight hours a day,” said Mr. Pradeep. Among the top 200 ranks in the Civil Services examination this year, 13 ranks were bagged by candidates from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. G. Lakshmikanth Reddy of Hyderabad bagged the 21st rank in his second attempt. An MBA graduate of IIM Ahmedabad, he works in a private organisation.
At all India level, 4,51,602 had appeared for Preliminary exam in August, out of which 28,000 aspirants were from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
Of these, about 1,000 are learnt to have appeared for the Main Examination in Hyderabad.
This year many applicants took the examination due to age relaxation and number of attempts. About 9 lakh had applied for the examination, of which about 4.5 lakh actually appeared for the examination.
“Most of these aspirants were repeaters and qualifying in such a scenario is a task. With the CSAT becoming a qualifying paper from this year we can expect much better results from the Telugu states,” said V. Gopala Krishna, founder director of Brain Tree civil services coaching institute.
