By Joydeep Chakraborty

A famous quote goes something like this, “Deputy? What is the point of being a Deputy? I want to be the Leader.” Having spoken to the budding IAS officer and the Deputy Collector from Odisha’s Bargarh, Mr. Prajnanandan Giri (AIR 24, UPSC CSE 2023), Indian Masterminds realized that no level of comfort can prompt an ambitious man to settle for anything less than what he truly deserves.

Hailing from a small town named Karanjia in Odisha’s Mayurbhanj district, Mr. Prajnanandan Giri was fairly pragmatic about his life choices. His father works as an Assistant Executive Engineer in the Integrated Tribal Development Agency, and his mother,  a homemaker, has a small fly-ash brick-making startup.

He did his schooling at Saraswati Shishu Mandir in Mayurbhanj before pursuing an integrated MSc. Degree in Chemistry from the coveted National Institute of Science. Education, & Research (NISER), Bhubaneshwar. During his final year at the institution, Mr. Giri had an option to actualize his American dream when he got the opportunity to pursue a PhD from universities in the US and Europe owing to his research publications in MSc. At this juncture, a confident yet humble Prajnanandan decided to traverse the ‘road less traveled’ and work hard to achieve his childhood dream of becoming an IAS officer!

Read Full Story https://indianmasterminds.com/features/upsc-stories/how-a-working-oas-officer-cleared-the-upsc-cse-2023-with-an-exquisite-rank-of-24/