Pune-based Aniket Mandavgane (23) could have easily cashed in his engineering degree to make a career in Indian industry. But he was always driven by greater contributory impulses. “It was always my objective to work for a greater cause. Money and material comforts come second,” he says. His idealism and voracious reading habit were, he believes, major factors which enabled him to top the list of candidates declared successful from Maharashtra in this year’s Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) exams. Mandavgane’s all-India ranking is 29 and he has chosen to join the Indian Foreign Service (IFS).
Born in Varangaon (Jalgaon district) into a family of Brahmin priests, Mandavgane schooled in Jalgaon, and was admitted into Pune’s Sinhagad College of Engineering in 2004, from where he qualified as a mechanical engineer. Despite having qualified as an engineer, while writing the UPSC exam, he opted for descriptive subjects such as history and political science.
Mandavgane’s achievement, which has transformed him into a folk hero in the state’s rural hinterland, is particul-arly notable because 318,843 candidates countrywide registered for UPSC 2009, of whom only 11,849 candidates qualified for the main written examination held in October-November last year. Of them, 2,140 were selected for the personality test conducted in March-April, and the final all-India list included 625 male and 166 female candidates.
The only son of Priya, a kirtankar (one who recites religious poetry) and Govind, a priest at the Vitthal Mandir in his native town Varangaon, Manda-vgane moved in with his grandfather to study engineering in Pune.
According to him, it’s rare for UPSC aspirants, particularly engineering stream students, to do well in this testing public exam in the first attempt. “I utilised my time very carefully, completing my engineering curriculum methodically and quickly, making time for preparing for the UPSC on an everyday basis. I read fewer, but carefully selected books and thus avoided confusion. Success in the UPSC requires wide reading of newspapers and magazines to thoroughly acquaint one’s self with the Constitution, economic status of nations, general knowledge and current issues,” he advises.
This year, Maharashtra fared well in the UPSC exam with 70 aspirants from the state making it into the final list of 791 selected candidates. Of them, six made it into the top 100. In 2007, only 40 students from Maharashtra managed to clear the exam with Uttar Pradesh and Bihar securing the highest percentages.
Huned Contractor (Pune)