From newspaper agent’s son to IAS,Lalit Jain bags 41st rank

It could not have been much bigger than what a newspaper agent has got in his son as Lalit Jain,27,the only son of Shashi Pal Jain,made Kharar proud by securing the top Tricity position in the Civil Services Examination with an all-India rank (AIR) of 41. The top rank secured from the Tricity fell from 27 last year to 41 this year. This was followed by 58 and 70 compared to 63 and 68 last year.

Jain had failed in his first three attempts and was also rejected at the interview by the Haryana Public Service Commission (HPSC) for the Haryana Civil Service. A practising lawyer at Punjab and Haryana High Court,Jain is a law graduate from Panjab University (PU).

A nephew of former Chandigarh MP Satya Pal Jain,Lalit is the first to directly become an IAS officer from Kharar. Right since the news of his making the giant leap from a newspaper agent’s son to an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer,Jain’s home town Kharar,15 km from Chandigarh,is taking pride. His house in NRI Enclave was swarmed with relatives,friends and neighbours,as newspersons jostled for a glimpse of the simple-looking tall youth.

Flanked by proud parents Rajni and Shashi,also a stringer for vernacular dailies from Kharar,among other upbeat family members,Jain owes his success to his late grandmother Vidya Wati and late maternal grandfather Des Raj Jain. Putting his lawyer career on hold,he made repeated attempts to clear the Civil Services. “In the first attempt I could not clear even the prelims,which I cleared the second time but failed in the mains. In the third time,I cleared the mains but failed in the interview,” recalls the IAS select. Asked what made him keep attempting to achieve his aim,Jain replied,“My parents and grandparents would always tell me that I was made to excel,which made me going.”

“It was ever since I saw the status of my maternal grandfather,who was a civil servant,that I had vowed to become a civil servant,which is a platform to serve the needy,” recollected Jain.

Kashish Mittal (21),a resident of Mohali,cleared the IAS exam with an AIR of 58 in his first attempt. A computer science engineer from IIT (Delhi) by training but an Indian classical vocalist by interest,Kashish has been following his passion for music over the last 10 years and is a ‘B’ high grade vocalist at All India Radio who has performed in various parts of the country.

“Yes,the combination of Indian Classical music and IAS may sound strange but all these years I have been driven by my passion for music while my father proved to be the greatest motivator behind my success in the IAS,” said Kashish. His father Jagdish Kumar,an IPS officer,is IG (Information Technology & Telecom),Punjab,posted at the Punjab Police Headquarters in Chandigarh while his mother is a homemaker.

Kashish has already made up his mind to choose the IAS as he feels that it would provide him a wider canvass to work on rather restricting himself to IPS or any other branch. A student of YPS Patiala and GMSSS-35 Chandigarh,he aims to improve the overall delivery of public services. He has performed in Agra,Gwalior,Ahmedabad and several times in the city.

Harjinder Singh cleared the exam with the 70th rank while Deepti Uppal (26) from the Tricity was 81st in the order of merit. The resident of Sector 12-A here who did her MA in Economics from PU in 2006 feels overwhelmed as well as relieved as this was her last attempt at the Civil Services. “I was in class V when my father shared his wish for me to become a DC. From there onwards,I had set my target for the Civil Services,” said Deepti. Her mother is a post master at the Sector 8 post office while her father is a businessman. On the selection procedure,she added,“Though I had faced the interview twice before,this time it was completely different as questions were thrown at me from all the corners. So I was really hoping that my name would be there in the final list,but did not expect at all that I would be securing this rank.”

Deepti did her schooling from DC Model,Panchkula,and GMSSS-16,Chandigarh. She had Economics and Public Administration as her subjects for the Civil Services and attempted for the first time in 2007. On her preference,she said that she would opt for IAS and like to work directly at the grassroots level for the general public.