New Delhi, Apr 22 (PTI) For Delhi’s Aakash Garg, it was focussed studies and not the number of hours spent in preparation that helped him secure fifth rank in the UPSC Civil Services Examination (CSE) 2024, the results of which were announced on Tuesday.

“I believe in quality and not quantity in studies. I did targeted studies that helped me in cracking the examination. I do not believe in hourly studies,” Garg told PTI on the phone.

Youngest of the two siblings, he did his schooling at two different schools — Gitarattan Jindal Public School (till 10th class) and CRPF Public School (11th and 12th) — in the Rohini area of Delhi.

The 24-year-old Garg has a Bachelor of Technology degree in computer science from the Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, Delhi. He got fifth rank with sociology as his optional subject in his second attempt.

He is the only one from the national capital among the top five candidates.

“I could not qualify the civil services preliminary examination in my first attempt. Then I decided to take the exam again and got selected,” Garg said.

He credited his success to his parents.

“I had been good at studies since my early days. My parents used to encourage me a lot to prepare for the civil services examination,” Garg said when asked who motivated him to prepare for the examination.

To a question about the choice of service and cadre post his selection, he said, “I have opted for the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and home cadre, that is Arunachal Pradesh-Goa-Mizoram and Union Territory (AGMUT) cadre.”    Garg said he would like to work in the education and healthcare sector after joining the service.

His father is a businessman, and his mother is a homemaker, while his elder sister is married and lives in Ghaziabad. His interests include keeping abreast with developments in artificial intelligence and its social impact, watching science fiction movies and following Formula-1 racing.

Meanwhile, Shakti Dubey secured the highest all-India rank, with Harshita Goyal and Dongre Archit Parag getting the second and third ranks, the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) announced on Tuesday.

Shah Margi Chirag, who has a Bachelor of Engineering degree in computer engineering from Gujarat Technological University, Ahmedabad, secured fourth place with sociology as her optional subject.

The top five successful candidates comprise three women and two men.  As many as 1,009 candidates — 725 men and 284 women — have been recommended by the UPSC for appointment to various services on the basis of Tuesday’s results.

The civil services examination is conducted annually in three stages — preliminary, main and interview — by the UPSC to select officers of the Indian Administrative Service, Indian Foreign Service (IFS) and Indian Police Service (IPS), among others.

The civil services (preliminary) examination 2024 was conducted on June 16 last year. A total of 9,92,599 candidates applied for this examination, out of which 5,83,213 candidates actually appeared in the test.

As many as 14,627 candidates qualified for appearance in the written (main) examination, which was held in September 2024. Out of these, 2,845 candidates qualified for the personality test or interview, which were held between January 7 and April 17 this year. PTI AKV AMJ AKV AMJ AMJ