Over the past two years, Pragati Rani from Haryana’s Kurukshetra has cleared three prestigious exams – the UPSC twice and the Haryana civil services exam where she emerged second.
In 2021, Pragati Rani from Haryana’s Kurukshetra appeared for the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) prelims. Falling a few marks short, she did not make the cut. But the attempt ignited a spark. This month, 31-year-old Rani, the mother to a three-year-old boy, secured the 355th rank in the UPSC exam, bettering her previous score, and is set to become an IAS officer.
Spurred by her husband Dr Atul Verma, Rani, who is a radiologist by profession, started preparing for the civil services when her son Rajvardhan Verma was just six months old. But the journey was not easy, she said, especially with Atul away to pursue his MD.
“I used to prepare for the civil services from my home itself. I did not get too much time to study. I did not want to neglect my child…sometimes he would go to his grandmother’s. That time I used to solve some questions or cover some topics,” she told
“When he used to sleep at around 9.30 pm, I used to read for nearly three or four hours daily. That was my most effective time in terms of focused study. I used to plan the chapters or topics to be covered every day,” Rani added.
Beating all odds, Rani cleared three prestigious exams – the UPSC twice, and the Haryana civil services exam where she emerged second.
In the 2022-23 UPSC exam, Rani got the 740th rank and could have secured the DANICS cadre to be posted for civil services in Delhi, Andaman & Nicobar, Lakshadweep, Daman and Diu, and Dadra and Nagar Haveli. However, she preferred to join the Haryana civil services as she had emerged second in the examination conducted by the Haryana Public Service Commission (HPSC) in 2023.
After training, Rani joined as an officer on special duty to the Ambala divisional commissioner in November 2023 but she continued to work to improve her score in the UPSC examination. The preparations this time around were tougher, she said, as her son was older. “He was aware that his mother was studying in another room. He used to come to me to tell me, ‘Mumma, please play with me’,” she said, remembering the “tough phase” juggling motherhood, her career and her professional aspirations.
Finally, she secured the 355th rank in the UPSC exam this year. As she belongs to the Other Backward Class (OBC) category, she is counting on getting into the IAS this time.
Rani advises UPSC aspirants to keep Plan B ready, saying the exam is “unpredictable”. “This exam requires consistent studies of two years. One year for exam preparations and the second year for three rounds of the exam. So the candidates should care for their health too during this period. Don’t take this exam as life, instead give time to life too. For focused studies, one should remain happy while caring for other aspects of life,” she said.
‘My mother gave me wings to think big’
Rani, who studied at SKG High School in Rohtak’s Meham town, said her father Naresh Verma, a school teacher, taught her to be humble in life while her mother Sushil Verma, a nurse in the state health department, stressed the importance of studies.
“My mother wanted to see me becoming a doctor as she could not become a medical practitioner. My mother had done the nursing course because my maternal grandparents used to think that women could only become nurses and only men were entitled to be doctors. My mother gave me the wings to think big,” she added.
Rani married Atul five years ago. She said that it was he who told her to pursue her civil services studies so that she would not regret it at a later stage. Mother-in-law Kamlesh Verma, who retired as a school principal just 10 days before the birth of Rani’s son, always helped when she was busy with her studies, she added. Rani’s father-in-law R C Verma, a former IAS officer, is currently a member of the Haryana State Police Complaint Authority.
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CREDIT: – THE INDIAN EXPRESS
