From a Farmer’s Daughter to IAS Officer: The Quiet Journey of Priya Rani

Who is she? There’s this girl named Priya Rani. Ordinary name, but her story hits different. She’s a farmer’s daughter from a small village in Bihar who somehow became an IAS officer. Not the dramatic movie kind of story—just steady, stubborn, and real. Rank 69 in UPSC 2023, Bihar cadre, 2024 batch. Right now she’s the SDM of Sasaram in Rohtas. That’s her. Early life and education She was born on 1 August 1994 in Kurkuri village, Phulwari Sharif, near Patna. Father Abhay Kumar tills the land, mother stays at home. In that village a lot of people thought girls studying too much was unnecessary. They would say things, try to pull her back. Her grandfather, Surendra Prasad Sharma, wasn’t having it. He basically told everyone to mind their business and made sure she got proper schooling in Patna. Primary school at Don Bosco, Class 12 from St. Michael’s. Then she went to BIT Mesra in Ranchi and finished B.Tech in Electrical and Electronics Engineering in 2018. After that she landed a good software job in Bengaluru—Oracle, the kind of place where the salary looks nice on paper. But after some time she felt empty. Money was coming, future looked sorted, yet something inside kept saying this isn’t it. So she quit. Family was upset at first, obviously. Leaving a stable job for UPSC is scary when your background is modest. She still did it, moved to Delhi, prepared hard. She gave the exam four times. In 2021 she got rank 284 and joined IDES. That was already a big thing, but she wanted IAS. Kept going. Fourth attempt, 2023, rank 69. Optional was Economics. She scored decent marks—807 written, 193 in interview. Total thousand. Mostly self-study, NCERTs, newspapers, previous papers. No big coaching drama. Biography table Family table Family is simple. No big connections, just a farming household that somehow managed to support a daughter who refused to settle. Personal life She keeps things quiet. Likes reading books on economics and self-improvement, cooks Magadhi food, goes for morning walks with her father, writes poems sometimes. When the rank 69 result came, her father video-called her and cried. She still talks about those tears like they meant more than the rank itself. No public talk about marriage or anything personal like that. She just focuses on work—listening to people properly, making sure schemes actually reach them, keeping things transparent. FAQs Q.How many attempts? Four. Cleared twice. Q.Did she really leave a high-paying job? Yes. Straight up quit and started preparing. Q.What was the hardest part? Village people trying to stop her from studying when she was a kid, and later her own family worrying when she left the job. Q.Where is she now? SDM of Sasaram. Q.Any advice she gives? Keep it consistent. Don’t get carried away by coaching hype. Basic books done properly and previous papers analysed carefully go a long way. And don’t let one bad attempt finish you. That’s Priya Rani. Not some perfect hero. Just a girl from a farming family who kept walking even when people said stop. Quiet, determined, and still doing the work. Publisher By – Rohit Manral  Written By- Anjali Pandey