IRS officer Suresh’s rise to top is a story of grit
The railway track is the only ‘road’ this godforsaken hamlet once knew of. When its denizens needed to go out on errands or to the nearest railway station, they took to the track, which also meant courting danger.
The hapless village is ‘Sarvapuram’ in Mahboobabad district. The people in this area walked three km on the railway track to reach the nearest railway station at Tallapusalli.
Good tidings were in wait. A little boy who walked on this track along with his father, decades ago, finally equipped himself with a senior government job and changed the fate of his village. He found it was time for him to give something back to his village.
This hamlet along with the ten other habitations with similar problems has been connected with internal roads. A concrete-laid road that connects these areas to the highway is now all set for inauguration.
Beams Lakhavath Suresh, IRS, Joint Commissioner of Income tax (HRD), “This is thanks to a very important TRS minister. I approached him with the project to erect a concrete road that connects the area to the highway. He assured me these areas will have a permanent road within 60 days and he fulfilled that promise.”
Suresh has been trying for a while to change the fate of this area for the better. The village now has a well-built school building and other basic infrastructure. The school is at par with the convent school in cities. The hamlet that used to draw drinking water from well now has an RO plant for drinking water. Streets are well-lit with LED lights.
“Walking on the railway track for three km for one or other errand as a boy ignited the spirit in me to help erect a transportable road to this thanda,” he says.
His next dream is to create libraries in 100 thandas that would be of help to the new generation and students. These are underprivileged students and need such support.
Lakhavath Suresh remembers the major turn he had in his life. One day, he accompanied his grandfather to a nearby farm where the old man worked as a labour. The owner of the farm looked at the boy, sized him up, and asked his grandfather to send him along as a help to his home in Mahboobabad. “It was a grand farewell, I was five when I left my thanda, and all the village people came in a procession to see me off,” the IRS officer reminisces.
Suresh started doing odd works at the house and the landlord initiated him into the tuition classes being given by a teacher to his children. The children were getting set to write the entrance for the Hyderabad Public School. When the results were out, the landlord’s children failed and Suresh passed.
“That perhaps irritated the landlord and he stopped extending such support to me. I later went to Hyderabad with my father to seek an ST-ST scholarship. We managed to get a little space to sleep at a shop in Masabtank.
After some 20 days, I got my scholarship sanctioned. I joined the Hyderabad Public School at Begumpet.”
Suresh was the one ST boy in the history of HPS who was made the head boy. “Those three stars and stripes on the shoulder inspired me and since then I aspired to be an IPS officer”. He was good at track and field as well as other sports and games. “I channeled all my frustration into sports that made me win 277 medals. My parents did not even know what a medal was, though,” the officer recollects.
“I was made state captain for AP in athletics for ISC and ICSC school games. I got gold, silver and bronze in the School Nationals in various track and field games. I took to sports because of the insecurity I developed in the school and at the hostel.”
“We used to live in a hut. My father used to abuse and beat up my mother. My brother lost his leg as a cart ran over him. Both the brothers are now welleducated and well-off. The old hut has been raced and in its place rose a
2BHK house with nice toilets and other facilities.
“After completing Twelfth from HPS in 2005, I was clueless. A close friend and classmate who was going to join the Sri Venketeshwara College in Delhi gave me an offer of help to go with him and that he would take care of my boarding, lodging and the fees in the college. I followed him.”
In year 2008, Suresh completed the graduation. The next year, he attempted UPSC and cracked it at first attempt. In 2013, he got married to his Civils batch-mate, Kanika Aggarwal, who is also a Joint Commissioner with the Income Tax. The couple is having two kids -
Atharv-7 and Rudra aged one.
Suresh recollects when he first came to Hyderabad, he was at Masabtank sleeping near a crockery shop. His first posting in Income Tax also happened to be Masabtank.
YOUNG IRS officer uplifts his laid-back hamlet with road, infra; end to villagers’ dangerous walk on rail track for daily errands.