Haritha. V. Kumar Biography 
Haritha. V. Kumar is the topper of UPSC Civil Service exams announced 2013 May. She scored 53% marks to get first rank and it is after 22 years, a Keralite became topper in IAS exams. Also she is the first lady of Kerala to get this achievement. The person who got it in 1991 was Raju Narayana Swamy of Changanassery (Kottayam district).
Haritha belongs to a middle class family in a small town, Neyyattinkara. Her father Vijaya Kumar worked in water authority as a contractor. Her mother is a housewife. She did her schooling in St.Therasa’s convent, Convent road Neyyattinkara. She did in Malayalam medium and in 2002, she scored 7th rank in Kerala, for state syllabus. She joined plus two in a nearby school – Government Boys Higher Secondary school and during those days, her father used to take her for preparation classes in Thiruvananthapuram city by bus. As a child itself, she wanted to fulfill her father’s dreams who wanted to see her as an IAS officer. She joined Barton Hill Engineering College to persuade B.tech in Electronics and Telecommunication. Their family temporarily shifted to Thaucaud, heart of the city from their home town Neyyattinkara. They took a rental home there.
As IAS dreams were still going on in her mind, she declined the job offer of HCL Technologies. With little preparations, she failed in the preliminaries when she wrote Civil service exams for the first time. She took things seriously and prepared best to get 179th rank in 2010. In between, she chose Malayalam and Economics as optional subjects and studied Economics for two years under S. Narayanan, former head of the Department of Economics. Though many teachers, including Narayanan discouraged her from choosing Economics, she insisted on it as she felt that Economics is the basis of every official document. Though she got IPS in the second attempt, she decided to give a third try. In between she joined Indian Revenue service as probationary officer.
In the third attempt, she failed again and her rank was 290. She took leave for 1 year from civil service and tried hard to win it at last. It was her fourth and final attempt and she became the topper too. She is a simple Malayali girl who loves Vallathol poems and reading a lot. She watches movies and loves reading. Her favourite actor is Thilakan and loves to watch M.T Vasudevan – Hariharan movies. She is a trained Carnatic singer and Bharatnatyam dancer too.
Published: N/A
Updated: June 11, 2013
