Success Story : Blind candidate now IAS officer

Krishna Gopal Tiwari was in Varanasi on Friday to thank Kashi Vishwanath, the ruling deity of this holy town, for helping him clear the civil services examination in 2008. For, he made it in his third attempt despite having been visually challenged.

Son of a farmer, Swami Nath Tiwari of Ambedkar Nagar district, Krishna, 27, has completed training at the Lal Bahadur Shastri academy in Dehradun and will join the Madhya Pradesh cadre as an IAS officer on February 8.

Against all odds – the usual economic hardships of a person hailing from a relatively poor background – Krishna also had to fought his deformity, as he had to write his papers with the help of two scribes.

An economics graduate, Krishna said the happiest moment of his life was when he came to know he had finally cracked the civil services. His overall rank was 142, while he stood first among the candidates with some kind of physical deformity.

When he was young, he said he had a minor visibility problem. But he could not get it treated due to poverty. Things came to such a pass that using magnifying glasses was the only option for him.

Nine years ago, he had only 25 per cent visibility and by the time he sat for the civil services, he had to use scribes to write out his answer papers. And he had to prepare for the exams through the audio method. Since he could not afford coaching, he largely taught himself – with a little help of his friends who, too, were aiming for the civil services.

His greatest challenge during the written examinations was writing answers in economics that had visual content – diagrams. He said, “It was difficult to explain to the scribes. So, I used wires to make the diagrams, which the scribes then copied onto the answer sheet.”

Following his troublesome encounter with the diagrams, he appealed to the Union Public Service Commission to prepare a special question paper for the visually challenged.

Courtesy : Hindustantimes.com