IAS Ira Singhal says -‘If your idea gets rejected, it is either flawed or its time has not come’.
A year 2015 batch IAS officer Ira Singhal sounds totally against ‘victim mentality’. Singhal has never used her physical disability as a profit-card for achieving her dreams. When it came to inclusivity, she has taken a strong stand against the government in order to get a wrong corrected.
As always, success in the UPSC examination did not come easy for the topper of year 2014 UPSC Civil Services Examination, Ira Singhal. Even after cracking the CSE thrice, she literally fought for her rightful place in Indian Revenue Service in the courts. She succeeded in the exam in 2010, 2011 and 2013.
She was not given any posting despite being allotted Indian Revenue Service all three times. The reason cited was her disability. She has a spine-related disorder, scoliosis, which limits her arm movement.
Without being deterred, she opted for making one last attempt at the CSE in 2014, and after the exam, she deleted her notes and disposed off her books. But, ironically, this fourth attempt had turned out to be her last battle with success, as she came out to be the topper of the exam with AIR rank# 1. And now she had joined Indian Administrative Service.
Looking back, Singhal says – ‘I did not not take it up as a challenge when I knocked at the doors of courts, which also eventually ruled in my favor’. “I was only trying to right a wrong,” she says.
