BHUBANESWAR: “How I wish, my parents were alive to see me become an IAS officer,” was the first reaction of Animesh Pradhan after the results of Civil Services Examination-2023 were announced by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) on Tuesday.
While Animesh has done the state proud by securing an all-India second rank, for him it was more about fulfilling his mother’s last wish. He lost his mother Aruna Patra to cancer just last month and his father Pravakar Pradhan to heart attack in 2015, when he was in Class-XI.
Hailing from Bhalugadia village in Talcher, 24-year-old Animesh has cleared the examination in his first attempt. “This was a dream from my higher secondary school days. It has finally come true. I wish, my parents were alive to see me become an IAS,” said the techie who has been a topper throughout his career. After his father’s demise, Aruna, a school teacher had to join MCL as an accounts clerk to fend for her family of three including Animesh and his sister Anwesha. His father Pravakar was a lecturer of political science at Hingula college in Talcher.
“It was my father who had instilled the aim of becoming an IAS in me. But, my mother had really backed me in my efforts. Her last wish was to see my UPSC results but destiny had different plans,” said Animesh, who started preparation for the examination in 2022. The same year, his mother was diagnosed with cancer.
“I wanted to clear the examination for the sake of my mother who single-handedly ensured that my sister and I had good education and careers in the absence of our father,” he said.
A BTech in computer science from NIT-Rourkela, Animesh opted for sociology as the optional subject in the UPSC examination. “Sociology, because I loved the subject - particularly feminist studies - when it was introduced to us as a paper in our engineering education,” said the DAV-Kalinga (MCL) alumnus.
Animesh is currently employed as information system officer with Indian Oil Corporation Ltd at New Delhi, which he had got through during his campus recruitment drive at NIT-R in 2021. Since juggling work with regular IAS preparation was impossible for him, he only appeared for the mock test series of various IAS coaching centres at Delhi beyond his work hours.
In Odisha, Animesh wants to work for people at the grassroots, be it education or healthcare. “I have seen how poverty affects lives in the rural belts of Talcher and Angul. I want to ensure that poor people do not suffer,” he said.
As many as 10 aspirants from Odisha have secured ranks in the exams this year. Prajnanandan Giri and Ayushi Pradhan have cleared the examination and secured 24th and 36th rank respectively. Jayashree Pradhan has bagged 52nd rank, Abhimanyu Malik 60th and Amritanshu Nayak 110th. Similarly, Shubhra Panda, Rashmi Pradhan, Biswajit Panda and Sourav Das have secured 204, 319, 343 and 466 ranks respectively. Rakesh Kumar Sahoo and Anup Nayak have secured 575 and 1,001 ranks.