Prakash Rajpurohit IAS UPSC Topper, AIR – 2 in 2009

Prakash Rajpurohit has hogged the limelight and made the people of Rajasthan proud by bagging the All India Rank 2nd in the UPSC Civil Services Examination. Prakash wanted to join the Rajasthan IAS cadre because it is his home state. “IAS has a lot of diversity and challenge and also gives a chance for public services,” he said.

Dr. Shah Faesal had topped in the 2009 UPSC Exam and 24-year-old Prakash Rajpurohit, who came second, have quite a bit in common. Neither of them took coaching classes to crack what is thought to be the toughest exam in the country, and they did so after having taken up other professions.

Marks Obtained

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Family Background

Prakash Rajpurohit originally belongs from Rajashthan’s Barmer district. His father Devi singh Rajpurohit is  a manager of public sector company Seaton India Ltd. And his mother Rama Rajpurohit is a house maker. He is the only child of his parents. His parents helped him a lot throughout his journey. If he required any material for studies, they used to get it for him.

Educational Background

Prakash Rajpurohit did his schooling from DAV Public School in Brij Vihar, Ghaziabad and then from DAV Public School in Dayanand Vihar, Delhi. He completed his B Tech in electrical engineering from IIT Delhi. During his final year of graduation, he decided to take the Civil Services Exam but he started preparation from 2008.

Success for Prakash was not completely new as he scored AIR-4, IIT/JEE in 2003. Prakash Rajpurohit was working with a start-up IT firm in Noida before he began to explore the idea of becoming an IAS officer. He decided to become an engineer and joined IIT because he was very good at math, as it was his favorite subject.

Optional Paper

Prakash Rajpurohit’s task for selecting optional paper was simple as he have command over Electrical engineering and Mathematics. He decided these subjects because his graduation course covers most part of syllabus of both the optional. His interest and aptitude was the foremost criteria for deciding the optionals.

Prakash Rajpurohit says, ” you are comfortable in your graduation subject go ahead with it. One should carefully look at the syllabus, previous years papers and some basic text books of that subject before deciding”.

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Attempts by Prakash Rajpurohit

Prakash Rajpurohit achieved this success in his second attempt. In my first attempt he fell short of time and was not able to complete syllabus and revise properly. He was very happy with his result as he had worked very hard.

Prakah Rajpurohit says, “he was a movie buff. Movies were his only source of relaxation”.

Preparation Strategy

Prakash Rajpurohit did not take any coaching and studied on his own. He devoted 8-10 hours daily for preparation for two years. The secret of his success was being focussed, his hardwork and parent’s support played an important role. He was inspired by the success of Mutyala Raju Revu (AIR-1, CSE’06) and Supreet Singh Gulati (AIR-2, CSE-07). It was a planned decision. He started preparation for 2008 attempt and hoped to succeed in that attempt only but he had to give another attempt for final selection. But he never gave up, that failure propelled him to forge ahead even stronger and achieve his goal.

Advice for Young Aspirants

• One can start preparation during one’s graduation. Ideally one should start preparation 1 year before writing Prelims.
• One should enjoy the whole preparation and should persevere and do the hardwork.

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