Pausumi Basu (right) with her mother. Picture by Srinivas

Jamshedpur, May 18: The steel city is not to be left behind in the success story that the Union Public Service Commission examination this year scripted throughout the country.

Pausumi Basu, daughter of P.K. Basu, senior executive with M.N. Dastur and Company, who is doing her PhD in geography from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi, has done the steel city proud by securing 31st position in UPSC (civil).

Though this resident of 5th phase in Adarshnagar, Sonari, went to schools and colleges in several places across India, for the last 10 years Jamshedpur has been her home. “My father had a transferable job, so I studied in various places like Hyderabad, Vizag and Rourkela. Later I went on to complete higher studies in Calcutta and Delhi,” said Pausumi, a topper in BSc geography from Sri Shikshayatan College, Calcutta. She moved to JNU for masters, MPhil and PhD.

When asked if it was the power bracket that she wanted to be in, Pausumi breaks into a laughter.

“No. I was typical academic kind, but it was after I shifted to JNU that I started developing an interest and started preparing for UPSC,” she added.

And if her rank is going to make many take serious note of her, what’s even more astonishing is the fact that she achieved this success without any tutorial help. “In Delhi and, especially in JNU, the craze for UPSC is tremendous. But I think one only needs to prepare according to the syllabus and be precise and well versed with all the subjects because cracking the test is definitely not all that difficult,” said Pausumi.

The magnitude of her success story is yet to sink in. “This was my second attempt, the first time I did not even clear prelims,” said the bureaucrat-in-the-making, whose subjects were geography and political science.

Pausumi got to know of her results on May 14 and now she would be leaving for Delhi for her medical test. She would be joining the Lal Bahadur Shastri Academy of Administrative Studies in Mussouri for her one-year training only in August-end.

The girl, however, gives full credit to her husband Prashant Anand, working with a nationalised bank in Calcutta, for the success. “He was very keen on taking the UPSC examination and it’s he who guided me on how to prepare for it,” said Pausumi.

So, what does this future face of Indian bureaucracy has in mind now? “I still do not know, but I think communication gap is the main problem in India today,” she signed off.