He had stars in his eyes But no money in his wallet to fulfil his dream of making it to Indian Administrative Service (IAS). He had to work for five years to become financially independent. In his first attempt last year Om Prakash Gupta topped the Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) exam. But, he is not taking it up immediately as he has already qualified for UPSC Civil Services (Mains) and would rather have a go at the interview first.
Mr Gupta appeared for the UPSC civil service exam twice but couldn’t make through it as in his first attempt he couldn’t clear the prelims and interview in the second. While talking to the Indian Masterminds, he said, “I am currently focusing on my UPSC civil service interview and I want to fully devote to that.”
BIHAR IS THE PRIPORITY
Aiming to deliver quality service to people, he wants to aim towards ending unemployment in Bihar. In 2008 he passed the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) entrance test in his first attempt. After completing his studies, Mr Gupta taught students for five years, till 2017.
In his conversation with a news agency, he said that it was in 2017 that he decided to fully devote himself to prepare for CCE. He said, “I want to break the vicious cycle of unemployment in Bihar…I qualified for IIT in first attempt in 2008 then I worked as teacher for 5 years. I quit teaching in 2017 to devote full-time to the preparations.”
The 30-year-old said, “I was confident to clear the exam but emerging as a topper is certainly unexpected. I want to work towards improving the digital infrastructure in Bihar. I am absolutely thrilled and more determined to clear the UPSC too this time.”
DIDN’T TAKE COACHING HIMSELF
In 2012, Mr Gupta graduated from IIT Roorkee and started coaching in engineering institutes, alternatively in Patna and Delhi, to support his family.
He never joined a coaching institute for his preparation and after staying in Delhi for a year he returned to his state after gathering enough information of study materials needed for his preparation.
THE PREPARATION
He said in an interview with the Indian Express, “each day during my stay in Delhi, I talked to as many aspirants as I could to understand their strategy and study patterns. I was an amateur then and every candidate’s experience was helpful in creating my own strategy. I did not join any coaching apart from doing the test series during my preparation.”
“Coming to Delhi was the first step of my preparation journey but I knew that I could only prepare in the comfort of my home. Therefore, I went back to my village after one year,” he added.
ONLY NCERT BOOK NOT SUFFIENCT
As against to the opinions of many, Mr Gupta suggests against NCERT books for BPSC or even UPSC. He read some standard books, vision IAS current affairs magazine, and watched some YouTube channels as part of his preparation.
“The standard books we read during the preparation period cover almost all the information available in NCERT books. Therefore, a candidate should not read the NCERTs more than once,” he says.
THE BOOKS
The BPSC topper suggests students to do multiple readings of the standard books and not follow multiple books for one subject. He also stresses on the importance of solving mock papers as one can evaluate their preparation for it.
However, he even recommends books like Indian Polity by M Laxmikant, A Brief History of Modern India by Spectrum books, Environment by Shankar IAS, Nitin Singhania’s Handwritten for Art and Culture, Mrunal Pandey’s YouTube lessons on economy, and Lucent for science and technology. According to him these books could help students aspiring to qualify the Civil service exam.
