Ankita Agarwal is an Indian woman who secured AIR 2 in Union Public Service Commission Civil Services 2022. Before clearing UPSC 2022, she also worked in the Indian Revenue Services.
Wiki/Biography
Ankita Agarwal was born in Bihariganj, Bihar. She did her elementary education in Modern Public School, Bihariganj, Bihar, after which her family shifted to Kolkata. She further pursued her schooling in DPS, Kolkata. Later, Ankita did her graduation in economics from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi. From her school days, Ankita wanted to be an IAS officer.
Physical Appearance
Hair Colour: Black
Eye Colour: Black
Family
Ankita’s grandfather’s name is Maliram Agarwal.
Parents & Siblings
Ankita Agarwal is the daughter of Manohar Agarwal and Kiran Agarwal. Her father is a businessman. She has a younger brother, Ayush Agarwal.
Ankita with her parents and brother
UPSC
Before clearing UPSC 2022, Ankita worked in Indian Revenue Services (IRS) as she cleared her UPSC AIR 236 in 2019, however, she wanted to be an IAS so she gave her third attempt and secured AIR 2. Ankita did her Civil Services exam preparation from a reputed coaching institute located in the Rajinder Nagar area of New Delhi. Ankita chose political science and international relations as her optional subjects. In 2019, Ankita attended the mock test interview conducted by Shubra Ranjan IAS study Pvt. Ltd.
Corporate Sector
Ankita worked with a corporate company named Dalberg, which is a development advisory firm in a strategy and policy, where she worked for almost one year.
Facts/Trivia
- Ankita likes reading books. The Lives of Others by Neel Mukherjee is one of her favourite books.
- Before moving to Kolkata, Ankita’s father had a hardware business in Bihar.
- In an interview, talking about civil services preparation, Ankita said,
I prepared through self-study as well as coaching. I believe both play equally important roles in a candidate’s life. Apart from basic books, I kept myself updated with current affairs and read newspapers and monthly magazines.”
- During an interview, Ankita stated that after joining the service she wanted to work for women’s empowerment, primary health, and school education sectors.
- While stating her reasons to pursue her career in civil services she said that
I was clear about my goal and therefore chose not to enrol for a postgraduate degree. I worked for a year and then jumped into UPSC preparation. I qualified in the exam in 2019 and got into the IRS but my goal was to join the Indian Administrative Services. So I reappeared in the exam in 2021. This was my third attempt,”
- When asked about the mantra of preparation and success, Agarwal said,
I used to devote maximum hours to prepare for the exam. Instead of putting in a fixed number of hours, I tried to maintain a sustainable study schedule”.
- During her college days, Ankita was part of the Campus Placement Cell and The Finance & Investment Cell. She was also the editor in chief of the Yearbook Editorial Team and had joined the economics society.
- In 2015, Ankita joined a summer internship for two months at CRY (Child Rights and You), which is an Indian non-governmental organization that works toward ensuring children’s rights and in 2016, she joined another summer internship for 3 months at Pratham, which is a non-government organization that works towards the provision of quality education to underprivileged children in India.
- Ankita also represented her college in basketball, however, in the final year of the college she met with an accident so she left playing.
- Ankita revealed in an interview that she left all the social media platforms during her civil services preparation.