Hyderabad: Keeping with the national trend, Telangana also saw a woman top the charts in the Civil Service Examination 2024, conducted by the UPSC. Ettaboyina Sai Shivani from Warangal secured AIR 11 to emerge as the state topper. In the country, Shakti Dubey from Uttar Pradesh secured the top spot.
Shivani showed remarkable improvement in her second attempt, in which she managed to get the IAS cadre, whereas, in her first attempt, she failed to clear prelims. “I narrowly missed qualifying for mains in my first attempt,” said the 24-year-old. “I took my preparation more seriously after that. Though I did not take any coaching to prepare for the exam, I took online guidance, especially to improve my writing skills.”
Shivani said that she spent most of her time fine-tuning how to write answers. “My concentration was on content, presentation, and also value addition in each answer,” said the electronics and communications engineering student from IIIT-Ongole. Shivani is among the seven beneficiaries of the Telangana govt’s Rajiv Civils Abhaya Hastham who made it to the final list.
“I was sure that my name would be on the final list. But, I never imagined that I would be the state topper or get eleventh rank,” she added.
From the two Telugu states, three students secured a spot in the top 50. Along with Shivani, two others — Banna Venkatesh and Jayasimha Reddy Ravula — made it to the top 50. In total, about 35 candidates from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh featured in the final list, in which 1,009 candidates were selected.
“I always wanted more out of my job. I wanted it to be meaningful and work for the greater good,” said Kshitij Aditya Sharma, NALSAR, Hyderabad alumni, who is currently an IRS officer in Bhopal. Sharma, who secured AIR 58, said he worked as a corporate lawyer for three years after completing law but decided to try his hand at UPSC after the Covid-19 second wave. This is his third attempt.
Saichaitanya Jadhav, who secured AIR 68, managed to get his name on the final list in his sixth attempt. “All my previous attempts were unsuccessful,” said Jadhav, who is the son of a head constable. He moved to Hyderabad in 2019. This year, a total of 4,25,60 candidates appeared for the preliminary examination from the two Telugu states. About 500 of them qualified for mains and over 75 for the personality test.
