Thirty-year-old Pranjil Patil lost her vision at the age of six but that did not deter her from beating all odds and achieving her dream.
Patil, who hails from Maharashtra, secured the 124th rank in UPSC 2017. And on 28 May, she took charge as the Assistant Collector of Ernakulam district in Kerala, becoming the country’s first visually impaired woman IAS officer, Hindustan Times reported.
This wasn’t the first time Patil cleared the UPSC. In 2016, she could secured an all-India rank of 773, The New Indian Express reported. Despite being offered a job in the Indian Railway Accounts Service (IRAS), she wasn’t deemed fit as her vision was nil.
Patil, who lost her eyesight due to retinal detachment, completed the first leg of her training at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie. As part of her training, she will hold the position of the Assistant Collector for a year, The Indian Express reported.
After her field-training in Kochi, she will head back to Mussoorie next year to wrap up her training, at the end of which she is expected to submit a dissertation, the IE reported.
Currently, it is my training period as Assistant Collector. I am learning about various departments and their functions. There are many challenges ahead of me.Pranjil Patil to Hindustan Times
A political science graduate, Patil completed her Masters in international relations from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, followed by an MPhil and PhD, HT reported.
She cited Japanese philosopher Daisaku Ikeda and physicist Stephen Hawking as her role models in one of her interviews.
(With inputs from Hindustan Times, The New Indian Express, The Indian Express)
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