Meet Pranjal Patil, a visually impaired IAS officer

Meet Pranjal Patil, a visually impaired IAS officer from Ulhasnagar, who has proved that determination and hard work leads to achieving your dreams, no matter how challenging they may be. On her 32nd birthday, she was blessed with the post of Deputy Municipal Commissioner of South Delhi Municipal Corporation, as a reward for a long journey of overcoming obstacles and to a daunting spirit of a girl who believes in herself.

“I am happy to be posted in the capital of the country and that too on my birthday. It will always be a memorable moment as I cut the cake and took the charge, which I never dreamed of. “We should never be defeated. We should not give up. Because with all our efforts, we will definitely get that one breakthrough moment that we are waiting for,”

Pranjal Patil IAS. Born in Wadaji Village, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, to Lahen Singh B Patil, an engineering assistant, And Jyothi Patil, a homemaker, who has been always the support system to her motivators to achieve her goals. Pranjal was born with weak eyesight and lost her vision completely at the age of 6. She completed her schooling in braille from Kamala Mehta School for the blind, Dadar, Maharashtra. She graduated with political science from Mumbai’s St. Xavier’s College followed by a master’s in international relations from Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). This journey till here was not as easy especially for someone with impaired vision. leave aside the day-to-day challenges from crossing roads, locating destinations, riding public transport, etc, her major problems came in coping up with university lectures and writing exams. It was quite a challenge for her to find someone who writes for her at a matching speed. . She got help from Vidushi, who would write exams for her

No, obstacles whatsoever could beat our feisty girls will power and determination. technology played an important role in her education. Both at times as disadvantage and sometimes as an advantage. She got the software Job Access with Speech (JAWS) installed on her laptop, which would read out books for her. But using this software was a challenge by itself. It was a time-consuming process of getting each and every book scanned to listen to the same. She couldn’t read handwritten notes with the help of this software.

The UPSC, civil service exams are considered to be one of the toughest ones and not many with sound physical ability can clear the same at the first attempt. Pranjl Patil, the go-getter girl cleared UPSC in 2016 in her very first attempt with an All India rank of 733 Despite being eligible for a job in the Indian Railways Service, Pranjal got rejected due to her zero vision. This rejection though quite disappointing, couldn’t stop her from achieving her goal. She immediately started preparing for the coming year and this time even harder. Hard work always pays and so was ith Patil, who cleared the UPSC 2nd time with a rank of 124 in 2017.

A new history was about to be written, with a young, hardworking focussed,(visually impaired) lady taking charge of a post that many have only dreamt of. After her training from the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration in Mussorie, Uttarakhand, she received her first appointment as Assistant Collector in Ernakulam, Kerala. Ms. Pranjil Patil made headlines in 2019 as the First visually impaired women IAS officer of India. Today she’s the countries pride and the first visually impaired IAS officer holding the chair of Deputy Municipal Commissioner of South Delhi Municipal Corporation.

The journey of Patil is as inspiring as the lady herself. She is an example to the saying ” there is no shortcut to success”. To all the aspiring students of our country, she also leaves another important message, that disability is only a state of mind, and focus with strong willpower can break through the toughest barriers in life. Also an important note to all who run after popular coaching institutes to realize their academic dreams, Patil cleared all the exams without any help of any kind of private coaching aid.