UPSC Odisha: How the Odisha topper changed his approach to crack the exam in his third attempt

When it comes to the Odisha topper of the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), the results of which were declared on Monday, May 30, it is Karthik Panigrahi hailing from Sonepur with 63rd rank.  

He was followed by Gourav Agarwal of Sundargarh who secured 86th rank. Overall, as many as 685 candidates cleared the exam for the year 2021.

This was Karthik's third attempt at the civil services. "The first two attempts, I was a little unorganised with my preparations but this time, I had prepared well and was sure of securing some rank. But I did not expect 63rd rank," said Karthik, who was brought up in different parts of the country due to his father's transferable job.

Gourav is an alumnus of the National Law University and this is his second attempt at UPSC. He started preparing for the Civil Services in 2019. “My objective will be to make the voice of people at the grassroots reach the government,” he said and attributed his success to hard work.

Although it is not clear how many aspirants from Odisha made it to the final list, a few who made the ranks are Pooja Sahu at 199, Durga Prasad Adhikary 205, Biswa Bisruta Tripathy 232, Samir Kumar Jena 273, Soumya Ranjan Pradhan 306 and Manas Ranjan Sahu 513.

Durga from Berhampur worked Bosch and Maruti Suzuki gave up his job in 2017 and began IAS preparations. This is the youngster's fourth attempt. "I was interested in civil services since my college days but while working in both the companies, I could not get enough time to prepare. This is why I decided to quit and give full time for preparations," he said.

It was also the fourth attempt for Biswa Bisruta of Bhubaneswar who is currently a trainee officer in the Odisha Administrative Service (OAS). An engineering graduate from NIT-Rourkela, he worked in PepsiCo India for a few years before giving it up to prepare for civil services in New Delhi. He also completed his MA in History from JNU, New Delhi in 2017 during the preparations and appeared for the OAS in 2018. 

"The OAS results were declared in December last year and I was selected. But I plan to appear for the civil services examination again next year for rank improvement," he said.