The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) released the final result of the Indian Forest Services (IFS) 2022 exam recently. The top three positions were bagged by Kolluru Venkata Srikanth, Sahil Poswal, and Anuradha Mishra, who stands in the third position.
It is no small feat for Anuradha who not only cleared the examination but also secured the third position after consecutively failing in four attempts previously!
Indian Masterminds spoke with Anuradha to know more about her journey to IFS.
BACKGROUND
Hailing from the Dhanbad district of Jharkhand, Anuradha completed her high school and intermediate from DAV Koylanagar, in the district, after which she enrolled herself into BITS Pilani for further education. She completed B.E. in Computer Science in the year 2015 from Pilani.
The daughter of Chief Medical Officer, R.D. Mishra and Prabha Mishra, Anuradha worked as a software engineer at Samsung Research Institute in Noida from 2015 to 2017.
A STRING OF FAILURES
It was her father’s dream to see Anuradha become a civil servant. To make him proud, she left her cushy job in 2017 and began preparing for civil services. She gave her first attempt at UPSC CSE in 2018 but couldn’t clear it. What followed was a string of failures where she couldn’t crack the Civil Services Examination even once in five attempts, even after reaching the interview stage twice, in 2020 and 2021.
Not getting discouraged by the continuous failures, Anuradha decided to simultaneously give the Indian Forest Service examinations as she kept preparing for CSE. She also gave her first attempt at IFoS in 2018 but couldn’t clear it followed by more failures in 2019, 2020 and 2021.
PREPARATION STRATEGY
So, Anuradha decided to change her preparation strategy in her latest attempt. She had chosen Forestry and Agricultural Engineering as her optionals and began preparing by first covering all the basic books related to the subjects. She also enrolled herself in coaching and gave as many test series as possible to understand and rectify her mistakes.
Along with this, she religiously practised and solved the previous years’ question papers, which proved to be quite beneficial for her, as it helped her to finally crack the IFoS examination on her fifth attempt.
“It was a very pleasant surprise for me when I saw the result. I just wanted to be on the list as this was my fifth attempt in UPSC CSE and fourth interview for forest service itself. So this selection, that too with the third rank, was unbelievable for me!” Anuradha shared with Indian Masterminds.
INTERVIEW ROUND
Most of the questions asked of herduring her interview were from her DAF. She expresses her gratitude to 1995 batch IPS officer, Mahesh Bhagwat, currently posted as ADG CID in Telangana, who helped and guided her in DAF analysis, for her personality interview.
Some of the questions asked of her were also from her subjects, forestry and environment which she mostly knew the answers to and was able to deliver them well.
“However, some questions were entirely unknown to me and I honestly admitted to not knowing them to the interview board,” she revealed.
WHY IFS?
On asking why she wished to become an IFS officer, Anuradha had a simple answer. She said, “It is an All India Service which is very diverse in its job profile. By joining IFS, I can contribute to society building and nature conservation, especially in today’s time when we are facing threats like climate change and environmental pollution.”
She believes that the one thing that immensely helped her in cracking the exam in this attempt was her consistency and years of hard work.
TIPS FOR ASPIRANTS
For the people who were not able to clear the examination this year, Anuradha has a special message. She advises: “Focus on your optionals. Go through PYQs and study accordingly. Try to attempt tests and practice time-bound answer writing.”
She also added that GK and English should not be neglected since even slight negligence can cost a candidate heavily.
FUTURE PLANS
Anuradha plans to give one more attempt at UPSC CSE as she wishes to become an IAS officer. Meanwhile, as an IFS officer, she plans to work on forest cover and its quality, minimize human-wildlife conflict, and try to augment livelihood opportunities for forest-dwelling communities.
