Joining the Indian administrative services is undoubtedly one of the most prestigious and jobs one can ask for. People, of course, come here for different reasons. Some want to enter civil services to have a settled career and get the respect & power it attracts. For some others, challenging their intellectual horizons and getting to work for the betterment of the people becomes the inspiration. And few aim for the service after facing the injustice at some point of time. IAS officer Dheeraj Kumar Singh is one such officer.
He cracked the UPSC in 2019 and secured 64th rank. Currently, he is undertaking the training program in LBSNAA and aspire to fight the injustice when given the charge on field. He has been allocated the Rajasthan cadre
Just a Single attempt
Coming from a lower middle-class family of Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, Mr. Singh has seen it all. He got his primary education in Hindi medium and continued to do good in his education. His father used to work outside of their district, so Mr. Singh had to bear most of the responsibilities in the house. The family couldn’t afford to spend much to make him doctor or engineer. However, he cracked medical exam and got his MBBS & MD degree solely through his hard work.
Mr. Singh has always been a passionate person, and after completing the education he was offered a job with a good package. He was happy with what he had done with his life so far, but destiny had other plans for him. He was once taken aback by the behavior of a government employee, and this one incident left a bad mark on his psyche, while at the same time creating an urge in him to try for civil services.
Mr. Singh was already a doctor and his family economic condition was also changing for the better. But still, it was a big risk to leave the well-paying job and prepare for UPSC. His parents were scared for his future, but he was confident enough to make a go for it. However, taking his family situation under consideration, he decided to only give one try at the UPSC exams.
The Incident That Started It All
Mr. Singh’s father used to live outside of the town. While he was away, Mr. Singh used to take all his responsibilities. It was easy until he was in his school days. Then, he went to Banaras Hindu University for his MBBS & MD. During that time, he used to travel to his hometown to take care of the house. It was manageable till then but after getting the job, things became really difficult for him. So, he decided to request for his father transfer. He went to authorized officer to talk about his concern but was shocked to see their cold behavior. This hit him hard, and he thought that when despite him being a doctor nobody was listening to him, then what about other less privileged people.
In an interview he said, “I wanted to go for UPSC after I completed my MBBS. But, this could not happen. I come from a middle-class family and my parents didn’t want me to take risk. They were scared so I did MD (Doctor of Medicines). Then I faced negligence by government officials and decided to prepare for UPSC. It was 2018 when I started my preparation and I chose Bangalore not Delhi for studying. I didn’t want to disappear in crowd of coaching centres there.”
And as luck would have it, Mr Singh successfully rose up to the challenge he had thrown at himself by way of that self-promise.
