Kanishak Kataria, a B-Tech from IIT Bombay who topped the civil services examination 2018, is among six candidates from Rajasthan clearing the prestigious exam.
The results of civil services final examination 2018 were announced by the Union Public Service Commission on Friday.
Akshat Jain from Jaipur and an engineering graduate from IIT Guwahati has secured the second rank, while Shreyansh Kumath of Ajmer, Shubham Gupta, Khushboo Lather and Akshay Kabra secured fourth, sixth, 98th and 207th ranks, respectively.
"It was my first attempt and I was confident of getting a good rank, but number 1 rank was a big surprise for me. It is a childhood dream come true," said Kataria, 26, who belongs to SC category and qualified the examination with mathematics as his optional subject. He is a B.Tech (Computer Science and Engineering).
Katarai's father Sanwarmal Verma is also an IAS officer.
Kataria has earlier worked with a multinational company in South Korea and Bengaluru but resigned in 2017 to prepare for civil services.
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He said he took coaching in Delhi and studied 8-10 hours daily and slogged 14-15 hours in the last two months before the examination.
"I worked in private sector. I also got a chance to work with a company in the US. I realised that I was just making money and and not working for my country. So I made a decision to prepare for civil services," he said.
Akshat Jain, 23, whose father D C Jain is an Indian Police Service officer and mother an Indian Revenue Service officer, cracked the examination in his second attempt.
"I looked at my parents and realised that it is a prestigious job in the country which also allows to help people and bring about a change in the society. I had attempted in 2017 right after graduation but I could not clear the preliminary examination," he said.
Jain said he took three-month coaching only for mains examination but kept taking test series.
Gupta, 25, also from Jaipur, cleared the UPSC exam with AIR-6. He is already an Indian Audit and Accounts Service (IA&AS) officer.
"I was undergoing training and I tried utilising time after 5 pm every day. I kept revising the syllabus and took test series examination," said Gupta, son of a businessman.
Lather, daughter of IPS officer and DGP law and order M L Lather, is another candidate from Jaipur to clear the examination.
She was undergoing training as an IRS officer in Nagpur after securing 285 rank in her previous attempt.
Lather, an MBA graduate, said she gave up a job at a private bank in Gurgaon in 2015 only to become a civil servant.
"I always wanted to become an administrator to take policy decisions. I look at my father, his work and dedication to serve the people. I never followed a time-table or attended coaching classes. I took test series and prepared at home," she said.
Kabra, a law student, is also from Jaipur.
The civil services (preliminary) examination, 2018 was conducted on June 3, 2018. A total of 10,65,552 candidates had applied for the examination, out of which 4,93,972 candidates actually appeared.
A total of 10,468 candidates qualified for appearance in the written (main) examination which was held in September-October, 2018.
A total of 1994 candidates qualified for the personality test conducted in February-March, 2019, out of which 759 candidates (577 men and 182 women) have been recommended by the Commission for appointment to various services like IAS, IPS, IFS etc.