It was an altogether different feeling for IAS officer Rajeshwari B when she recently visited her parent’s place. It was not because of meeting her parents but the sight of the books and notes she used during her UPSC preparation more than a decade ago that mesmerised her. They made her reminisce the time when she was young and was studying hard for the CSE exam.

The officer, who is currently posted as the District Magistrate of Dumka in Jharkhand, shared a tweet regarding this visit to her home. The first thing she did was to pack 10 cartons of books and several notes to take them with her to Jharkhand, where she is currently posted. As Ms. Rajeshwari is an avid reader, she wrote: “Will be good to brush up… Reading is always empowering!!”

She might have not read all the books which she had collected for her UPSC preparation, but some of them surely served their purpose and got her to the position where she is right now. As CSE is not an easy competitive exam, it took Ms. Rajeshwari around three years to crack it and become an IAS officer.

EARLY DAYS

Ms. Rajeshwari belongs to the state of Karnataka where she completed the initial phase of her studies. She attended school in Mysore and Coorg and was a student of Coorg Public School (COPS) in Gonikoppal. She even stayed in a hostel as her father was a government employee and got posted in different places.

Her father, K. Bheemappa, belongs to Jade village in Shivamogga and her mother, B. Rathna, is from Hubballi. She has two brothers, Bharat and Manjunath. She is married to a Marathi businessman and has a son. 

After completing schooling, Rajeshwari studied history from Karnataka State Open University. She also pursued BA in Political Science while studying in the same college.

UPSC JOURNEY

Having a background in History and Political Science, she chose the latter and Sociology as her optional subjects while preparing for the UPSC exam. As she was fond of reading, she bought a ton of books, out of which some were completed and reread, some read once, and some referred to as per requirement.

She started preparing for the CSE in 2007 and also joined a coaching institute in Delhi. After her success, she was asked the general question: why she chose UPSC as a career? And her reply was, “An unexamined life is not worth living. And when I examine my life in the end, it will not be in terms of how much property, wealth and status I have made but it will be in terms of how worthwhile I have been to society. This I can do as an NGO or social worker, but the confidence I require will be given to me only by civil services.”

In 2010, with all the preparation and revision she did for the exam, she managed to secure AIR 334 to become an IAS officer of Jharkhand cadre. She also shared a picture on Twitter when she was in Bangalore to appear for the UPSC mains exam in 2010, the same year she cleared the exam.

Just as Ms. Rajeshwari B cleared the UPSC exam with flying colours, she has bought the same energy and zeal with her to IAS as well.  She became popular during the Covid period when she put in a lot of efforts in making her district free from the virus.

She was posted as Assistant Collector and ADM of Jamshedpur soon after. She was also the MGNREGA Commissioner in Jharkhand for some time. Currently, she is the District Magistrate of Dumka, Jharkhand.