Shri Ravindra Kumar - An IAS Officer, Everester, Author and much more.

IAS Officer of 2011 batch Shri Ravindra Kumar's first close encounter with professional mountaineering happened when he was posted at various positions in Sikkim Cadre from July 2012 to May 2016. During his tenure in Sikkim he was also Director of Adventure Institute IHCAE under Ministry of Tourism, Government of Sikkim. After the Sikkim earthquake in September 2011 Shri Kumar decided to learn mountaineering and he had no clue how his life would change from here as very soon he developed keen interest in serious Mountaineering and this is how he planned to climb Mt Everest for the first time in 2013.

After doing various courses in Darjeeling he went for Government sponsorship and successfully climbed his first peak Mt Everest on 19th May, 2013.

Shri Ravindra Kumar - Everest Summit 2013

After the Everest summit he subsequently climbed Mt Thingchenkhang (6010 Mtrs) in Nov 2014 and B.C.Roy peak (5427 Mtrs) in February 2015 as part of his next Mt Everest expedition preparation. In this second Mt Everest Expedition Shri Ravindra Kumar was leading a team five AIS officers from five different states and named the expedition as "As India Services Everest Expedition - 2015". 

The team consists of five civil servants, including 2 IPS, 2 IAS and one IFS officers. The other officers include Ms. Saroj Kumari, IPS-2011; Mr. S. Prabhakaran, IFS-2011; Mr. Vikram Jindal, IAS-2012; and Mr. Suhail Sharma, IPS-2012. 

The expedition was flagged-off  by Hon. Prime Minister of India Shri Narendra Modi along with IMF President Col. H.S. Chauhan on 27th March, 2015. This was definitely first time when Civil Servants together took up mountaineering to set the world record with a message of 'Swach Bharat Abhiyan' to raise awareness about health an hygiene in the World.  

Another file photo of AIS Everest Expedition flag-off

The team started for the journey for Mt Everest Base camp in the first week on April 2015 and after 25 days Nepal was hit by the deadliest earthquake at 11:56 Nepal Standard Time on 25 April 2015 killing nearly 9000 people and injured more than 22,000 people. Fortunately the team was still at the Mt Everest base camp (Nepal Side) and returned safely after the rescue work with Shri Kazi Sherpa who was one of their Everest Expedition Sherpa and had very good knowledge and experience of helping people climb Mt Everest.

In the year 2019 Shri Ravindra Kumar again climbed Mt Everest from Tibetan side and became the distinguished IAS officer who has climbed Mt Everest from two different routes i.e from Nepal (South Face) and Tibet (North Face). 

There was five camps on the north face 

1. Everest Base Camp at 5200 Mtrs
2. Intermediate Camp at 5800 Mtrs
3. Advance Base Camp at 6400 Mtrs
4. North Col. at 7100 Mtrs
5. Camp 2 at 7700 Mtrs
6. Camp 3 at 8300 Mtrs
7. Everest Summit at 8848 Mtrs

After acclimatizing for 15 days Shri Kumar made a guided ascend till North Col at 7100 Mtrs and right when the route to the summit was opened by the Sherpas on 22 May, 2019 he made the successful guided ascend to the top of the world 8848 mtrs at 4:20AM on 23 May, 2019  once again making history.

Shri Kumar, says that other than mountaineering, he has also done many other Sports & Adventure Activities like Bungee Jumping, Flying Fox, Para Sailing, SCUBA Diving, Skin Diving, Horse riding, River Rafting extra in the past. He has also been a ‘Black Belt in Karate’, a good swimmer and marathon runner in the past. Shri Kumar has authored a book on his Mt Everest Expedition named "Many Everest - An inspiring journey of transforming the dreams into reality". This books published by Bloomsbury talks about an innovative technique to success named ‘Advanced Positive Visualization’, which uses the innate power of human brain to catch image of anything before any other sensory perception like speech, hearing, smell, touch etc. 

Shri Kumar enjoying Snorkeling

Shri Ravindra Kumar, born to a farmer's family in Begusarai District of Bihar in the year 1981 was lean, thin and physically weak in his childhood but he was always been meritorious in his academics. With his initial education in a rural Hindi medium school at the village, Mr. Kumar cracked IIT Entrance Examination in 1999 in his maiden attempt and then, worked over a decade in the field of Shipping. Finally, he settled in his current job in the Indian Administrative Services in 2011 after clearing Civil Services Examination.

Shri Ravindra Kumar has worked at various posts including Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM), Additional District Magistrate (ADM), Chief Development Officer(CDO), District Magistrate (DM) and Commissioner, in State Government of Sikkim and Uttar Pradesh. He also got posted as Private Secretary to Union Minister of Drinking Water and Sanitation in Government of India, Sushree Uma Bharti and worked there from Dec 2017 till 14th Jun 2019. Presently he is posted in Government of Uttar Pradesh.