Palakkad: CS Ramya’s 46th rank Civil Services Examination, 2021, is quite special. The youngster who prepared for the high–profile exam while working hard to make the ends meet can now feel elated as her hard work and perseverance has finally paid off.
She, in fact, came second among the Keralites who made it to the rank list. However, her name didn’t feature in the local media in Kerala as Ramya is settled in Coimbatore.
Ramya is the only daughter of Palakkad native R Muthulakshmi and Nenmara native R Chandrasekhar, who is no more. The family has been residing in Ramnagar Kattoor in Coimbatore for years.
Ramya did data entry and data collection jobs to earn income to run the family and to study too. She was forced to take up the responsibility of the family after the unexpected demise of her father.
It was in 2015 that Ramya attemted the Civil Services exam for the first time. Even though she got through the prelims, she stumbled in the Mains exam. Later, she passed the Mains but didn’t qualify in the interview round.
Ramya says that she couldn’t attend any training classes before her first two attempts, as she couldn’t raise enough money for the fees. She then joined Amazon as an employee. However, she quit the job as she didn’t get enough time to study.
Ramya kept doing odd jobs to look after her mother. This was her sixth attempt which proved lucky for her. Interestingly, Ramya came second among the rank-holders from Tamil Nadu too.
Ramya who was academically brilliant had grabbed the second rank in Class 10 in Tamil Nadu. She had passed Diploma in Electronics and Communication with gold medal. She was chosen as the outstanding outgoing students during her BTech (in Electrical and Electronics). A keen learner, Ramya even completed MBA from IGNOU.
She is interested in choosing the Indian Foreign Service.