Thirst to serve people inspired me: UPSC rank holder

Raipur, May 5 (IANS) Kiran Kaushal, the woman from Raipur who ranked third in the country's highly competitive civil services exam, says it was her 'thirst to serve' people that inspired her to give her best shot.

'Thirst to serve common people and the marginalised class of society, besides god's blessings and a solid back-up by family members inspired me to excel,' Kaushal told IANS Tuesday, a day after the results of the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) exam were announced.

'The UPSC result brought double cheer for me as my husband too ... whom I prepared with for the UPSC exam, got selected,' said Kaushal in the middle of accepting greetings from well-wishers at her residence in New Shanti Nagar here.

Kaushal is currently posted as deputy collector in Bastar region's Kanker district.

Her husband Srawan Bansal, who is posted in the telecommunications department here, has got the 707th rank.

'He (Bansal) too is an IAS (Indian Administrative Service) aspirant and will try to notch up an IAS post in his next attempt,' she opined.

Kaushal is the first woman in Chhattisgarh to have achieved such a high rank in the civil services exam.

'Now I will have a bigger opportunity and major role to serve society, common people and marginalized class... it was one of the reasons that inspired me to go in for the IAS exam,' said Kaushal, who joined as deputy collector in January 2008.

The 28-year-old got married in March 2008 and says she enjoyed studying for the UPSC exam along with her husband.

'I enjoyed preparing for exam with my husband. Since we both got the interview call letters, we even started interviewing each other... and it really worked well,' she said.

'Everyone... my parents and my father-in-law helped me a lot... their wishes and prayers brought me the third slot. I was surely not expecting such a high rank. I was expecting something between 40-50 (rank),' said Kaushal, who cracked the exam in her third attempt.

The deputy collector, who has done her Masters in English literature, opted for history and philosophy as optional subjects. She said that one's frame of mind is more important than the number of hours one studies while preparing for the competitive exam.

'It does not matter how many hours you are studying in a day, the thing that matters the most is that how seriously and with a positive frame of mind you are studying and also your exam strategy must be accurate,' she said.

'Despite being an MA in English literature, I appeared as a Hindi medium candidate in the UPSC exam as I was more confident in Hindi than English,' Kaushal added.