IRS Priya Meena Success Story: How effective can a ‘Plan B’ prove to be for UPSC aspirants? The success story of Priya Meena, an Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer of the 2025 batch, serves as a prime example. Priya Meena faced failure five times in the UPSC examination but achieved remarkable success in her sixth attempt. Notably, even before cracking the UPSC exam, she had already secured five government jobs as part of her ‘Plan B’.
IIT Delhi Graduate and Software Company Job
Priya Meena hails from Rajasthan. Her father, Ganga Sahay Meena, is a Sub-Inspector with the Delhi Police. After obtaining a degree in Chemical Engineering from IIT Delhi, Priya worked as a software developer at a company. She began her UPSC preparations while still employed. She appeared for the UPSC Civil Services Examination (CSE) every year from 2019 to 2024. Across these six attempts, she failed to clear the preliminary examination three times, while on two occasions, she reached the interview stage but missed out on final selection.
Priya Meena’s UPSC Attempts
UPSC 2019: Appeared for the exam for the first time and failed the preliminary stage by a margin of just two marks.
UPSC 2020: Cleared both the preliminary and main examinations in her second attempt but fell short by 11 marks in the interview stage.
UPSC 2021: Deeply disheartened by two consecutive failures, she failed to clear the preliminary examination this time around.
UPSC 2022: In her fourth attempt, she once again cleared the preliminary and main examinations. Despite scoring 160 marks in the interview, she missed the final selection by just 5 marks.
UPSC 2023: In her fifth attempt, she failed to clear the CSAT paper. UPSC 2024: In her sixth attempt, she successfully cleared all three stages—Prelims, Mains, and the Interview—and secured AIR 838 to become an IRS (IT) officer.
How did she formulate a ‘Plan B’ amidst disappointment?
In a social media video, Priya Meena shared that she had become quite disheartened after facing repeated failures in the UPSC examinations. She wondered what she would do if she failed to get selected for the UPSC. With this in mind, she began working on a ‘Plan B’ in 2021 and started preparing for other competitive exams. She successfully cleared the examinations for the Intelligence Bureau, SBI PO, and IBPS PO. Despite having three government job offers in hand, she did not abandon her dream of clearing the UPSC exam. She obtained extensions for these jobs and resumed her UPSC preparations. She made her fourth attempt in 2022, but upon facing failure again, she once more turned to her ‘Plan B’. This time, she cleared the Reserve Bank of India’s Grade B Officer exam. She joined the RBI and continued preparing for the UPSC alongside her duties. During this period, she was also selected for the position of Director at the Sports Authority of India.
Her husband is also an IAS officer
Priya Meena’s husband, Vikas Marmat, is a 2019-batch IAS officer. He is currently serving as the Project Director of the Kuppam Area Development Authority in the Andhra Pradesh cadre. Vikas secured the 473rd rank nationwide in the 2018 UPSC examination. Prior to this, he held key positions such as Assistant Collector (Kadapa), Sub-Collector (Tekkali), and Municipal Commissioner of Nellore.
