Helping students crack exams: Senior cop gives back to society

Ranchi: As a teenager, police officer Vikas Srivastava from Hazaribag helped the students of his late father, Avinash Chandra Srivastava, a schoolteacher. The passion to teach, which was imbibed in young Vikas, continues even today though he has become a deputy superintendent of police (DSP) and posted in the Investigation Training Institute, Hotwar, here. Currently, he is helping thousands of students prepare for various competitive examinations, including the civil services.

Vikas, now 48, runs a YouTube channel titled ‘DSP ka Pathsala’ and has 1.44 lakh subscribers at present. Among his followers are 12,300 UPSC aspirants and 33,200 JPSC aspirants. So far, he and his aides have coached 87 civil service aspirants, who had qualified for the 7-10th JPSC Civil Services Main Exam, out of whom 34 were selected.

Explaining his coaching programme, Vikas said, “This is an effort to pay back to society. Earlier, I used to visit libraries and schools to teach students. I adopted social media to reach out to a maximum number of students in Jharkhand and Bihar. After preparing the subject matter, I send a message and link to students through telegram. Even those who miss my live classes can see the videos on social media.”

Notably, Vikas coaches students mainly in general studies, including history, geography, and politics. He, along with several other state-level officials including DSPs and sub-divisional officers, also trained candidates who cracked the main examination on ways to face interviews.

One of the selected candidates of the 7-10th JPSC Civil Services Main Exam was Sonny Vardhan who is now posted as a DSP in Jamshedpur. He said, “I watched the videos of Vikas sir during my preparation phase. It has provided seamless guidance not only to me but a large number of other students. His hardwork radiates positivity.”

On his passion for teaching, Vikas said, “My father was a schoolteacher and so many students visited our home for studies. Whenever my father was not available, I used to teach them. After growing up, I started a coaching institute in Hazaribag but later cracked the state civil services examination and joined the police service.”

While posted as SDPO (Deoghar) Vikas used to visit the Ambedkar library located behind his official residence to coach the students. “The library has a capacity of 800-900 students and is open round the clock. Whenever I came home early, I used to visit the library at about 8 pm and teach batches of 250 students for two to three hours.”