The Jharkhand government has posted a visually impaired IAS official Rajesh Kumar Singh as the Deputy Commissioner of Bokaro district. Rajesh holds the distinction of being the first visually-impaired Deputy Commissioner in the state. Earlier, he was a special secretary in the department of Higher and Technical Education. 37-year-old Singh is the second visually challenged IAS officer in the country after Krishna Gopal Tiwari, who was appointed district collector of Umaria in Madhya Pradesh in 2014. Rajesh was ranked third in the disabled category of the UPSC exam (2007) but failed to get any posting from the department of personnel and training. It was only after the intervention of the Supreme Court that he was given a posting letter in 2010.
आज दिनांक 15 जुलाई 2020 को उपायुक्त, बोकारो के रूप में 2007 बैच के भारतीय प्रशासनिक सेवा (आईएएस) अधिकारी श्री राजेश कुमार सिंह ने पदभार ग्रहण किया। pic.twitter.com/pc68JNu2yW
— DCBokaro (@BokaroDc) July 15, 2020
Rajesh Singh’s journey of becoming an IAS
Rajesh Singh is a resident of Dhanrua, Patna also famous for a special type of laddu. His father RK Singh is posted in Patna Civil Court as an officer. A freak injury while playing cricket took away his eyesight. This life changing incident happened when he was just six. However, he did not give up his childhood dream of becoming an IAS officer.
After his initial education at Model School in Dehradun, Singh moved to Delhi and graduated from Delhi University and later did his post-graduation from Jawaharlal Nehru University. He cracked the the civil services examination in 2007. “The real struggle was preparation for the exam but I was lucky that most of my friends supported me a lot.” JNU gave me a lot and it helped develop my overall personality and broadened my vision up to a great extent,” says Rajesh.
माननीय मुख्यमंत्री से शिष्टाचार मुलाकात कर पुस्तकें भेंट की। कोविड 19 पर नियंत्रण एवं विकास कार्यो को गति देने इत्यादि विषयों पर वार्ता की गई। @HemantSorenJMM @JharkhandCMO @IASassociation @prdjharkhand @RanchiPIB @ANI @PTI_News @DDNational pic.twitter.com/eb4M4QNe3O
— DCBokaro (@BokaroDc) July 19, 2020
Rajesh penned a book highlighting his struggles
Singh has also represented India in the Cricket World Cup for the visually impaired. He represented India in the World Cup cricket competition in 1998, 2002 and 2006. Rajesh has also penned a book I: Putting The Eye in IAS, which talks about his own journey from a small-town to attaining the highest ranks of the Indian civil service. The book was released by former Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan in 2017.
