Success Story of - Thiru K. Nanthakumar.I.A.S | New SPD in SSA
Success Story of K. Nandakumar IAS – A Lorry Driver’s Son
K Nandakumar who always dreamt of reaching the zenith of excellence in Civil Services Examination has
come true by securing All India Rank 30th in the year 2006 at the age
of 26 years. He is an icon and a true inspiration for the millions of
Indian students and showed that nothing is impossible. This was his
dream which came true only because of his hard work.
Family Background
K Nandakumar comes from Mamarthapetti village in Tamil Nadu’s Namakkal
district. His father M Karuppannan went to work in the paddy fields of
his native village which proved a dead end, so his father joined a local
lorry service, as a ‘cleaner’. During that stint, which lasted two
years, he learnt to drive and got his license; he then got a job as a
driver. His mother Lakshmi is a house maker and she invested some amount
in buying a sewing machine, and works from home. She make about one
hundred rupees a day, and that takes care of the household expenses. The
household ran on Karuppannan’s income. He has one younger
brother Aravind Kumar and he is an engineering graduate.
Educational Background
K Nandakumar completed his schooling from Namakkal Government South
School, an institution where the medium of instruction was Tamil. After
completing his schooling he did engineering from the Pollachi Mahalingam
College.
Due to economic problem and the feeling that he had to help his father
to run the household led him to do a job in private company at
Coimbatore. During this period he worked and then did late night studies
and the result was extreme tiredness resulting from mental and physical
exertion. This began impacting on his studies and he slowly quited
focus on the Indian Administrative Service Exams.
Despite the economical challenges K Nandakumar faced, so finally he
decided to quit his job at an engineering firm to devote full-time for
preparation.
Optional Paper
With Tamil as his language medium, K Nandakumar had Geography and Tamil
literature as his optional paper. He was comfortable with Tamil, as he
was into this medium of education throughout his school days. K
Nandakumar says, “it eased undue apprehension about grammatical and
syntax errors and allowed him to focus on the essence of the writing”.
Attempts by K Nandakumar
For the first time when K Nandakumar sat for the UPSC Exams,
he failed. On his second attempt, he ranked 350th and K Nandakumar was
offered Indian Railway Traffic System (IRTS). He could not ignore this
job in because that was the Railways, while dreaming of the IAS he hoped
to land some day. So he joined the Railways, and began the required
training. Nights, he shrugged off the fatigue, and studied for yet
another attempt at the big one. Again he studied with new hope and great
enthusiasm and he fetched 30th rank in his third attempt.
Preparation Strategy
“There is no secret to success, as it was his hard work and nothing
else”, K Nandakumar says. He used to study in groups with his friends
together. The friends went together to trawl through the market, looking
for books relating to the Civil Services; they then pored over their
finds. Newspapers were devoured cover to back page, with meticulous
care. For current affairs, friends used to ask questions about the last
one year, so he read a lot of newspapers.
