COURTESY HT AUG 5

 Sonepat farmer’s son tops UPSC civil services exam

Topper Pradeep Singh
Sunil Rahar and Deeksha Bhardwaj

letters@hindustantimes.com

Rohtak/New Delhi : Three serving civil services officers topped the prestigious Union Public Service Commission examination 2019, which selects people to join the Indian Administrative Service, Indian Foreign Service, Indian Police Service, Indian Revenue Service and other civil services after three gruelling rounds of assessment.

There are 13 men and 12 women in the top 25.

Indian Revenue Services officer (2019 batch) Pradeep Singh, 29, from Haryana’s Sonepat has topped the list, and will opt for the IAS. Singh, a farmer’s son, is currently undergoing training at the National Academy of Customs, Indirect Taxes and Narcotics in Faridabad.

“My father Sukhbir Singh, who served as Tewri sarpanch for two terms, inspired me to become an IAS officer. He always wanted to work for the welfare of the farming community,” he added.

“Some of my friends also helped me in cracking this exam. I have achieved this feat by resorting to self-study,” he said.

“Pradeep has made every Haryanavi proud today,” his father Sukhbir said. All told, 829 students have cleared the examination in 2019-20 and will now head to the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration in Mussoorie, where they will spend over four months for a foundation course training them to be officers in various arms of the government. Jatin Kishore, 26, secured the second position. He is from Delhi and a member of the Indian Economic Service (2018 batch) This year 304 students from the general category cleared the exam, as did 78 from the Economically Weaker Section (EWS), 251 from Other Backward Classed, 129 from SC and 67 from ST categoriesA