BHUBANESWAR: Both Bhagirathi Bal and Sweta Panigrahi were born blind but they did not let it come in the way of their dream of getting into the administrative services. The Odisha Civil Services Examination-2021, the results of which were announced by Odisha Public Service Commission on Monday, saw Bhagirathi secure the 340th rank and Sweta 382. Hailing from Padanpur village in Keonjhar district, Bhagirathi cleared the OCS exam on his second attempt.
While his parents Kalandi and Basanti Bal are farmers, Bhagirathi currently works as a special educator in Delhi. In fact, he has been a teacher since 2015 after completing a diploma in special education. “I was inspired to get into administrative services by seeing IAS and OAS officers who used to visit my village. Since the financial condition at my home was not good, I decided to become financially stable first and then prepare for civil services,” said Bhagirathi, who worked as a shikya sahayak in a state government-run school and also as a primary teacher in Kendriya Vidyalaya at Keonjhar before shifting to Delhi to work as a special educator. He wants to appear for the UPSC examination too. His younger siblings Ranjit Bal and Sanjit Bal are also blind and they too want to prepare for civil services.
For Sweta, this was her third attempt at the OCS exam. Her previous attempts were in 2019 and 2020. And on all three occasions, she opted for self-preparation. Daughter of Narendra and Chinmayee Panigrahi of Bhubaneswar, she is currently pursuing her PhD in the field of gender equality at Ramadevi University. “Self-preparation was difficult but my determination to clear the exam was stronger. These days, everything is available on the internet,” said Sweta, who completed her PG from Utkal University. She referred to two to three websites that give out content on UPSC preparations and made notes for the OCS exam. Both 29-year-old Bhagirathi and 26-year-old Sweta are students of political science.