IAS officer Saumya Sharma, who cracked the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) exam in her first attempt in 2017, is an inspiration for all civil services aspirants.
Despite losing her hearing ability, Saumya worked hard to crack the UPSC exam and not let her disability become a hindrance to her success.
Saumya didn’t succumb to the challenges and difficulties of life, rather faced it bravely and took it in her stride, and achieved her goals and dreams.
Saumya Sharma, a resident of Delhi, was excellent in her studies from her childhood days. However, at 16, she lost her hearing ability suddenly. She met several doctors but no one could detect the problem. She had to take the help of hearing aid but she never let that become her weakness.
After her schooling, Saumya studied law at the National Law School. In the final year of Law school, Soumya decided to appear for the UPSC exam in 2017.
However, she had only 4 months left to prepare for UPSC prelims. Saumya worked hard and with just four months of preparation, she succeeded in clearing UPSC in her first attempt at the age of 23 without any coaching.
It is worth mentioning that during the UPSC Mains exam, Saumya had a high fever and was not able to even get up from the bed and could not even revise the GS. Still, she did not back down and appeared for the UPSC exam after getting an IV drip.
Notably, Saumya opted for the general category for the UPSC exam despite qualifying for the Disabled Person's category as she had lost her hearing ability.
Saumya scored excellent marks in all the papers and her mark sheet even went viral on social media.
Talking about her UPSC preparation, Saumya stressed that smart work is also very important along with hard work. All you need is proper planning and a good strategy, for cracking the exam, added Saumya.
Soumya is currently posted in Maharashtra Cadre as the CEO of Nagpur Zilla Parishad. She is quite active on social media with over 249K followers on Instagram and over 20.2K followers on Twitter.