With an ardent desire to serve society, P Srija decided to attempt her UPSC. And now this resident of Hyderabad did not just bag All India Ranking (AIR) 20 rank, she is also the topper from Telangana. With an MBBS degree from Osmania Medical College (2019) already in hand, P Srija is one of the two aspirants from this Telugu-speaking state that has made it in the top 100.

Hailing from Warangal, this is Srija's very first attempt and she humbly credits all her success to her father who is a senior sales manager in a two-wheeler company and her mother who works as a nurse in Jangaon.

It was Yashwant Kumar Reddy who ranked 93 followed by Richa Kulkarni and P Gouthami securing AIR 134 and 317 respectively.

About 40 candidates from the 761 appointments made by the UPSC are from the two Telugu-speaking states. Students of coaching institutes like Brain Tree, APTI PLUS Academy For Civil Services and Analog IAS Institute have fared well in the examinations.

Amidst the pandemic, about 4.82 lakh aspirants undertook the Civil Services (Preliminary) exam in October 2020 and 10,564 qualified for the written exam which was conducted in January this year. It was Shubham Kumar from IIT Bombay who topped the exam. From the 761 who did qualify, 263 are from the general category, 86 from Economically Weaker Section (EWS), 229 from Other Backward Classes (OBC), 122 from Scheduled Castes (SC) and 61 from Scheduled Tribes (ST).