A son of an MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) labour from Rajasthan has successfully cracked JEE Advanced exam 2018. Sunil Kumar Meena, a resident of Rajasthan’s Nagalmina village, secured 245 marks securing AIR (All India Rank)- 4 in ST category and AIR- 347 in general category in the JEE advanced examination. Sunil’s father Shivram Meena is a farmer by profession. Speaking to Hindustan Times, Shivram said that he used to take loan every year for the education of his children. Shivram has three sons and a daughter. One of Shivram’s son and daughter is pursuing B.Tech while another son is pursuing B.Sc.
Sunil had prepared for JEE examination from Kota’s Allen Career Institute. He got a concession of 85 per cent of tuition fees from the institute. Shivram had struggle much to make ends meet as he had a mortgage of land to support. Nagalmina village is a habitation of around 150 houses and has a population of 600 people. Even nowadays, people used to stay in mud houses and cooked their food in mud stoves. Sunil had completed his education till class 8 from a government school. Later from class 9 onwards, he was admitted to a private school which was five kilometres away from home. Sunil was brilliant from his school days. He scored 94.50 per cent in 10th and 97.40 per cent in the 12th standard. He bagged full marks in PCM (Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics).
Sunil first appeared for IIT JEE exam in 2017 but failed to secure a good rank. On the advice of his school’s principal, he went to Kota to prepare for the exam. He is the sole person in entire Jhotwara Post panchayat to pursue study in IIT. “I got the best faculty in Allen and a scope to study with talented students from all over the country,” Sunil told HT. Sunil wants to join administrative services after completing engineering. He aspires to study in IIT Delhi or Mumbai in the field of mechanical or computer science engineering. “Students like him are empowering our nation and taking our country ahead. They are establishing a new benchmark. We are proud of him,” said Naveen Maheshwari, director of Allen Career Institute to HT.
