Adept at wearing many hats, a young IAS officer bucked the trend by deciding to quit his coveted job to tutor civil service aspirants for free through his online initiative. 24-year-old Roman Saini, with a vision of providing free education to aspirants through ‘Unacademy’, had completed his graduation from the prestigious All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) prior to joining the prestigious IAS.

The thirst to serve the country at the national level has driven theAssistant Collector posted in Jabalpur to take such a decision. In a Facebook post, Saini wrote, “In 2011, Gaurav Munjal, whom I have known since school as the closest friend, called and spoke about his new idea ‘Unacademy’ which he had started on YouTube by posting a bunch of videos.”

“He (Munjal) had a vision of free education – and he asked me to join him. Four years later, ‘Unacademy’ is now India’s one of the largest YouTube channels with 1.1 crore lessons delivered and over 5 Lakh students benefited,” he said. “Recently, Gaurav and I took a life changing decision, we decided to quit whatever we were doing to pursue this full time,” he said in his post, as reported by PTI.

Jabalpur Collector S N Rupla said that Saini had decided to quit the IAS in September last year as he wants to do better at national level. The young IAS officer has started an online initiative “Unaccademy” to offer free tutorials to civil services aspirants, Rupla said, adding that his resignation is yet to be accepted by the Department of Personnel and Training (DOPT).

Saini, in the Facebook post, termed the decision to quit his lucrative job as “difficult”, but said he will pursue his passion to take forward ‘Unacademy’ full time. “Personally, it was a difficult decision to quit the civil services, as I have utmost respect for it. But I believe in Unacademy’s vision of free education, and hence, will be pursuing it full time from now,” he said in the post.