Aditya Srivastava who secured the top rank in the Civil Services Examination (CSE) conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), results of which were declared on Tuesday, quit his job at Goldman Sachs, an investment banking company, to prepare for the examination as he wanted to get away from his desk job and work for the betterment of the society.
A B. Tech in electrical engineering from IIT Kanpur, Mr. Srivastava, who hails from Lucknow, topped the examination in his third attempt. At present, he is undergoing IPS training in Hyderabad as he had cleared the examination in his second attempt as well.
Speaking to The Hindu, Mr. Srivastava said consistency and self-motivation are the key to cracking the examination. “I like reading and that helped me unwind during my preparation. I particularly like to read about dinosaurs. Infact, in one of my interviews I even mentioned to the panel that the popular movie Jurassic Park is not accurate,” Mr. Srivastava said. He added that his journey to the top of the ranklist was full of ups and downs and his advice to aspirants would be to learn from the experience of previous attempts.
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A total of 1,016 candidates (664 men and 352 women) have been recommended by the Commission for appointment to various services. Among the top 25 successful candidates, 10 are women, two of whom are in the top five.
Animesh Pradhan from Talcher in Odisha, a BTech in Computer Science from NIT Rourkela, secured the second rank. He cleared the examination his first attempt. Appearing for the examination was a culmination of his childhood dream and a well thought out career decision influenced by his childhood experiences of growing up in rural Odisha.
“Having grown up in Odisha and having seen a lot of socio-economic injustice around me, I wanted to come back and serve the people of my state in sectors of health and education,” Mr. Pradhan said. He said he has seen a fair deal of setbacks in his personal life, having lost both his parents, and especially his mother a month back.
For aspirants, he suggests “controlling the controllable”. “There will be a lot of setbacks but try to cling to the ray of hope and fight the tough battle,” he added. Despite finding very little time to indulge in hobbies, Mr. Pradhan used to practise freestyle dance with a group of dancers while preparing for UPSC.
Donuru Ananya Reddy, a graduate in geography from Miranda House, Delhi University, stood third with anthropology as her optional subject. She hails from the Mahabubnagar district in Telengana and began preparing for civil services on her own. “I was confident of securing a rank but did not expect to be among the first three rankers,” she said.
P.K. Sidharth Ramkumar, a B. Arch from College of Architecture in Trivandrum, secured the fourth rank with anthropology as his optional subject. Mr. Ramkumar is currently undergoing IPS training in Hyderabad after securing the 121st rank in the civil services exam last year. Ruhani, a graduate in economics from St. Stephens College, Delhi University, secured fifth rank with economics as her optional subject in her sixth and last attempt. She is also undergoing IPS training in Hyderabad.
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The civil services examination is conducted annually in three stages -- preliminary, main and interview -- by the UPSC to select officers of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Foreign Service (IFS) and Indian Police Service (IPS) among others. The preliminary examination was conducted on May 28, 2023 for which 10,16,850 candidates applied out of which 5,92,141 candidates actually appeared in the examination. A total of 14,624 candidates qualified for appearance in the main examination which was held in September, 2023 out of which 2,855 candidates qualified for the interview stage. The government has reported 1,143 vacancies -- 180 in IAS, 37 in IPS, 200 in IPS, 613 posts in different central Group A services and 113 in Group B services -- to be filled through the civil services examination 2023.
