Bihar boy tops UPSC exam, CM tweets best wishes

PURNIA Shubham Kumar, 24, who hails from Katihar district in Bihar, has topped the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) examination, 2020, the results of which were announced Friday

PURNIA

Shubham Kumar, 24, who hails from Katihar district in Bihar, has topped the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) examination, 2020, the results of which were announced Friday. (HT PHOTO)

Shubham Kumar, 24, who hails from Katihar district in Bihar, has topped the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) examination, 2020, the results of which were announced Friday.

For Shubham, a civil engineering graduate from IIT Bombay, this was the third attempt at the examination held to induct officers for elite all-India administrative, police and revenue services, besides others.

In 2019, he had secured 268th rank. In 2018, he could not make the cut.

Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar congratulated Shubham Kumar and said he has made Bihar proud. “Amir Subhani too had topped the exam,” Kumar tweeted, referring to the state’s top bureaucrat Subhani who is currently the additional chief secretary.

Deputy chief minister Tarkishore Prasad, who also comes from Katihar, spoke to parents of Shubham and expressed his desire to participate in the function to be organized to honour Shubham in his village Kumhari, according to the minister’s aides.

Shubham, son of Devanad Singh and Punam Devi, received his primary education in his native village and later got admitted at Vidya Vihar Residential School, Parora in Purnia, where he cleared his Class X in 2012.

Later, he went to Chinmaya Vidyalaya at Bokaro in Jharkhand and cleared his XII exam in 2014. He then got into IIT-Bombay.

In the UPSC exam, he chose anthropology as his optional subject.

Shubham is currently undergoing training at the National Academy of Defence Financial Management (NADFM), Pune. “My dream was to get into the IAS as it gives a wider platform to work for the betterment of the people. It has been realised and I would like to work for the underprivileged people, especially in rural areas,” he said.

Shubham is younger of the two siblings. His elder sister work as a scientist in Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC).

“He never gave up,” says Shubham’s father, who works in Uttar Bihar Gramin Bank. “I got the news through my son who called me from Delhi after the result.”