The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) announced the results of the civil services examination 2021 on Monday, and at least six candidates from Gujarat—all males—passed.
Ahmedabad-resident Hiren Barot (27) topped the list from the state with an all-India rank of 332. He cleared the exam in his fifth attempt.
Barot completed his graduation in commerce in 2015 and worked at the Reserve Bank of India from 2017 to 2019. He had served as a deputy collector of Surendranagar after clearing the Gujarat Administrative Service in 2020. Currently, he is undergoing training as an officer under the Ministry of Corporate Affairs after clearing the UPSC exams last year through ICLS (Indian Corporate Law Service) in 2019.
Various jobs had taught him how to deal with the public, Barot says. For example, tasked with ensuring uninterrupted medical services availability for home-quarantined patients during the first wave at Surendranagar as the deputy collector, Barot says, “There would be mothers with small kids and other vulnerable sections of the society. There used to be a different emotional impact. So counselling them, coordinating with medical teams taught me a lot.”
Barot says his first preference is IAS followed by the Indian Foreign Services (IFS).
Jayvir Gadhvi (25), who is ranked 341, passed his UPSC exams on his second attempt. In 2019, he passed the Gujarat Public Service Commission exam. He took the UPSC mains this year, just a month after being appointed deputy collector of Vadodara in September 2021. The Indian Administrative Service (IAS) is Gadhvi’s first choice, followed by the Indian Police Service (IPS), because “these two services allow one to contribute at a much higher level.”
Hailing from Zingadiya village of Kutch’s Mandvi, Gadhvi completed his primary schooling at the village followed by secondary education at Navodaya Vidyalaya and undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering at SVNIT. With a campus placement from SVNIT at Futures First in Jaipur, Gadhvi left for New Delhi in 2019 to prepare for the UPSC exam after working at the company for 10 months.
Gadhvi is the youngest of the four children in his family. His 62-year-old father used to drive an auto rickshaw in the village before the baton was passed to the eldest brother, who now drives a tempo van. Of his two sisters, one is a doctor in Kutch, said Gadhvi.
Prabhat Singh (32), who did his early schooling from Porbandar before completing further studies from Ahmedabad, started preparing for UPSC in 2011 for which he moved to New Delhi. But subsequent financial constraints and his mother’s death after a prolonged illness, compelled him to start working while completing law degrees (LLB followed by LLM) from Delhi University, and simultaneously also appear for competitive exams, whenever he got an opportunity.
In 2019, Singh was posted with the GST department in Gujarat as a state tax officer. He also cleared the UPSC for Indian Railway Services the same year. Currently, he is in Vadodara undergoing training at the National Academy of Indian Railways (NAIR). This year’s was his last and sixth attempt, marking an “end of his journey”. Singh says, “Whenever I got the opportunity, I appeared (for UPSC). The interest was always for UPSC but at times situations are stronger than your aspirations, so you need to save yourself.”
Singh says IPS is his first choice, followed by the Indian Revenue Service, because of his experience in the state tax office and his interest in arbitration law as part of alternative dispute resolution (IRS).