Mukesh Pandey of Guwahati has not only made the cut in this year’s civil services examination conducted by the UPSC but also made Assam proud by securing a rank among the top 20.
Pandey, who secured the 14th rank, is the son of Dr Sudeshwar Pandey and homemaker Geeta Pandey, who are residents of Ananda Nagar in New Guwahati.
Pandey told The Telegraph that he was elated and surprised by the result. “I was expecting to get selected but not a rank as high as 14. The result is definitely a boost for me,” the 25-year-old said.
“I will opt for IAS since I want to become an able administrator and contribute to the progress and economic development of the country. Wherever I will go, I will give a pro-poor orientation to the administration,” he said.
Pandey studied at Faculty Higher Secondary School in North Guwahati upto Class X and then did his Higher Secondary from Maria’s Public School at Birkuchi in the city.
He did his BA (Hons) in English from Cotton College.
Pandey said he made the cut in his second attempt. “I took coaching at Alternative Learning System in New Delhi for my first attempt but I prepared at home for the second attempt,” he said, adding that he thought about becoming an IAS officer while doing his graduation since it is a “prestigious job”.
Apart from Pandey, four others from the state have qualified the civil exams this year: Satyakam Dutta (rank 535), Dhrubasish K. Deka (295), Priyanka Das (666) and Anannya Saikia (818).
Floods, an annual bane for Dhemaji, became a boon for Dutta when the UPSC exam interview panel questioned him on how to create an early warning system for floods in Dhemaji. His prompt reply was that satellite images should be taken of the water sources in the hills of Arunachal Pradesh and based on these images the water should be channelled properly to avert floods.
“I think they asked me this question since I hail from Dhemaji,” Dutta, who also cleared the civil services exam in his second attempt, told this correspondent. He believes this question was his trump card.
Dutta chose public administration and literature of Assamese language as his subjects. He, however, did not enrol in any coaching centre to prepare for the exam. “The web is the global knowledge hub. Why does one need to go to a centre when the web is available with all kinds of information,” he said.
A consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers in Shillong, Dutta, 28, had prepared for his prelims in the Meghalaya capital. He, however, returned to Dhemaji to prepare for his mains. Dutta, a computer engineer, has done his MBA from IIT Bombay.
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