What do you do on a typical Day@Work?

A typical day starts with seeing petitioners. They bring their grievances. Then I begin by reviewing my sections. Afternoon mostly, I go for inspections. I hold the designation of sub-collector and sub-divisional magistrate for a revenue division in a district. Majority of my mandate is confined to managing revenue records, land subjects, and dealing law and order.

A district is divided into revenue division. Further divisions into taluks headed by tahsildars and further taluks into firkas headed by revenue inspectors and further firkas into villages manned by village administrative officers popularly called vaos.

So my reviews span across my taluks. Presently I have four taluks with 14 firkas and 120 + villages.

What's your advice for students who aspire to become an IAS officer? What are the courses or modules you took? Any specific tips on how to prepare?

Keep yourself aware of various things happening around you. It doesn't need any specialization to write the exam. But you can choose to be a specialist if you want. My optional paper for the civil service was sociology. I knew I had a flair for writing, plus it deals with almost our day to day life as a social being. It kept me interested.

Generally, I would say all that it takes is a genuine interest to learn and grasp ideas that can bring some respite to day to day problems. Keeping oneself updated on the news around the globe, country and the state would give you a head start. I would say reading the newspaper religiously definitely helps. It not only gives you a grasp of subjects that bug a common man but also lets you hold a conversation in any subject. Plus it helps with the English reading.

Why did you choose your current industry?

First one is the service thing which everyone is aware of. Secondly, IAS gives you immense opportunity to work across sectors. It is an initial field posting that primarily deals with land revenue and law and order maintenance. Next, I might get promoted and be posted into any department ranging from fisheries to finance. So the mobility across areas are high. It permits one to accrue knowledge if you wish to.

What it demands is the process, and it needs meticulous planning and determined smart work. It's long and grilling. Each cycle of the exam takes a year across the preliminary, main and interview plus the competition. Most of the time they say syllabi of the exam is everything under the sun. So it becomes important to choose what to ignore when you are preparing than what to study. If you are good with your school subjects, I bet you can crack the exam.

What's your journey so far starting from high school?

Well, I was in general, a good student who enjoyed studies sports and co-curricular activities alike. I had my share of ideas of becoming a space scientist to an archaeologist depending on the subjects and teachers I liked.

But the whole civil service thing came to me only after my college. I wrote the GRE and was planning to go abroad to pursue my masters in Data management. It was my parents' idea to give civil service a try. I met a few people who were preparing and wanted to give it a try. Hence started my preparation.

How are your mobility options within the industry and outside? How transferable are the skill sets to allow an individual to pivot their career?

The civil service exam conducted by the Union public service commission spans across 27 services. Same exam 27 different depts. Like IAS, IPS, IRS income tax, IRS customs, railway traffic service, to name a few. It gives you a massive opportunity to place yourself at the helm of affairs at each service. But the most coveted of course is the IAS as most of us aim for it.

IAS, unlike other services, gives you a huge opportunity to work across a spectrum of departments.

Like I am sub-collector today, I would be dealing with land and revenue. Tomorrow I might get promoted to an additional collector who deals with the development aspect of it. You get to oversee Scheme implementation of centre and state in a district.

Maybe you can become the Director of fisheries or even a managing director to the state transport department. So this gives us leverage to change your areas as per your posting. It also gives you a hand in glove experience to choose a field to excel in case you want to dig a deeper and get a PhD in a particular sector.

Finally, what kind of skills does one have to possess to excel as an IAS officer?

The job demands you mix well with people along all strata of society. So a pro-people approach with no place for prejudices or stereotypes would help. People management is the toughest part. You deal with people every day; it becomes essential to understand how a person works from his shoes as it helps us in dealing with things better.

Then the bedrock of any job would be integrity and commitment, of course. Developing a balanced view of things along with a thick skin would be great. Anonymity is bliss in our service. Keep up the spirits and not forgetting why we came into the service because not all you do gets approved or even noticed.

My district collector often says heroes come in capes with audience clapping is just on-screen. We are like earthworms anonymously doing for jobs right.. behind the screen in reality. The system is moving and surviving because of some silent warriors.