Patna: Lack of eyesight has never affected IAS officer Rajesh Kumar Singh’s vision.

Rajesh, from Anisabad in Patna, went blind at age six but did not lose sight of his aim – to be an Indian Administrative Service officer. Now, he is joint secretary in the women, child development and social welfare department of Jharkhand, and project director for the Integrated Child Protection Scheme.

He is not just an IAS officer either; Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan launched Rajesh’s 180-page book, I: Putting eye in IAS (Vigilante Publications), in New Delhi recently. The book is about the journey of a young small-town visually challenged boy to the highest ranks of the Indian civil service.

“It is a work of fiction revolving around the main character, Rakesh Sinha,” said Rajesh (32). “He does not have eyesight but has a deep-rooted vision to serve as an IAS officer in spite of the hurdles in his path. The book reveals how differently abled people are living in the face of persistent hostility.”

Rajesh, a 2007-batch Assam-Meghalaya cadre IAS officer, would know about hurdles. He ranked third in the disabled category, but did not get a posting from the department of personnel and training.

“Only one person was appointed. The government claimed there were not enough vacancies in the visually handicapped quota,” said Rajesh. “Ravi Prakash, another visually impaired candidate in the 2007 batch, came sixth. He approached the Delhi High Court in 2008, which ruled in his favour. In July 2010, the Supreme Court also ruled that the government had to fill the other six posts in the visually handicapped quota, following which Prakash got his posting letter in six weeks.”

Rajesh, son of administrative officer of the Patna civil court Rabindra Kumar Singh and homemaker Devmunni Devi, intervened in the same case in February 2009 but was refused an appointment letter. He approached the apex court again in September 2010, which issued a notice on October 21 the same year; he received the appointment letter in December 2010.

At present, he is on inter-state deputation to Jharkhand. To help him carry out his responsibilities, the government has assigned another official to be with him all the time. “I go through files, hold meetings with development agenda and implement new ideas,” Rajesh said. “These responsibilities are not challenging for me, but learning and enriching experiences. There was a reluctance on part of the system to induct an IAS officer who is 100 per cent blind, but I never lost hope. Finally the Supreme Court judgment made it clear there was a difference between eyesight and vision. To become an IAS, you need vision and not eyesight.”

Rajesh even represented India at the Blind Cricket World Cup thrice.

“In a nutshell, I would say I enjoyed the struggles I faced before being posted,” said Rajesh, who took a year to complete his book. “I hope my work motivates not only visually challenged people but every individual in society going through their own struggles. If anybody wants to achieve their dreams in the face of hindrances, they need to have unflinching determination, perseverance and hard work.”

(This appeared in The Telegraph on Feb. 29, 2016)