3 IPS trainees among top 5 in UPSC civil services exam, women over 1/3 of total

A dual (BTech and MTech) degree holder from IIT Kanpur, Srivastava worked at a multinational company in Bengaluru for 15 months before quitting his job in 2020 to focus on preparing for the civil services exam. This was his third attempt.

“In his first attempt, Aditya didn’t qualify for the interview. In the second attempt, he secured 236th rank and got selected for IPS. Despite being in training, Aditya continued his preparations diligently. We anticipated a rank between 30 and 40, but the result exceeded our expectations,” said his father, Ajay Kumar Srivastava, an assistant audit officer with the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) in Lucknow.

In fact, of those in the top 20 this year, five were selected on their third try, while nine were selected after more than three attempts. As many as seven of the top 20 candidates succeeded on their fifth try. Almost half of the top 20 are aged 27 years and above. Only three were selected on their first attempt, including Animesh Pradhan (24) from Odisha, who ranked second, and Donuru Ananya Reddy (21), who ranked third.

A computer science engineer from the National Institute of Technology (NIT), Rourkela, Pradhan dedicated his success to his mother, whom he lost to cancer during his preparation for the interview stage of the UPSC selection process. “I knew she had very few days left as she was suffering from terminal cancer. And that was the biggest motivation for me. I wanted to crack it as soon as possible so that I could make her proud,” he told The Indian Express.

Reddy is the youngest in the top 20. A Delhi University graduate with a BA (Honours) degree in Anthropology, she advised UPSC aspirants to decide their own preparation strategy based on their strengths and weaknesses. “Do not blindly follow whatever other toppers tell you. Every candidate should make a customised plan for themselves, and follow what suits them best. I did not stick to conventional methods of preparation and kept changing my strategy as per the requirement of that moment,” she said.

The fourth and fifth place were bagged by two IPS trainees, P K Sidharth Ramkumar (27), an architecture graduate, and Ruhani (28), an economics graduate from St Stephens College, Delhi University.

This year, a total of 1,016 candidates (664 men and 352 women) have qualified. Till less than two decades ago, women accounted for about 20% of the selected candidates. Last year was the first time that over a third of those selected were women, and the trend has continued this year.

Traditionally a male bastion, the civil services have witnessed a gradual increase in women’s representation. Till 2006, their share in the total selection was around 20%. It touched 29% in 2020, before hitting an all-time high of over 34% this year. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, it was below 20%.

The civil services (preliminary) examination, 2023, was conducted on May 28 last year. A total of 10,16,850 candidates applied for this examination, of which 5,92,141 candidates actually appeared. While 14,624 candidates qualified for the main examination, which was held in September 2023, “a total of 2,855 candidates qualified for the personality test (interview),” the Commission said.

Of the total 1,016 candidates selected, 347 are from general category, 115 from economically weaker sections, 303 from other backward classes, 165 from Scheduled Castes and 86 from Scheduled Tribes, it said.