Battling odds, Balurghat boy gets selected by Bhabha Atomic Research Centre

BALURGHAT: Kaustab Ghosh of Balurghat has proved that there is no short cut to success and that it can be achieved through hardwork and determination. Following Dr APJ Abdul Kalam as a role model, the 23-year-old boy, son of a security guard, is on his way to becoming a nuclear scientist at one of the best nuclear research centres in the country.

Kaustab’s father, Asit Ghosh, works as a security guard at a private company in Siliguri. His mother, Rumu Ghosh, is a homemaker. Their family runs on the father’s meagre income. Kaustab has spent his life amid major economic constraints since childhood. His mother used to take him to school on her bicycle. However, he always cherished the dream of becoming a scientist and was interested in studies from early childhood.

Initially, he studied at Balurghat Abhiyatri Vidyaniketan and then at Balurghat High School. He passed the secondary examination from Balurghat High School in 2016. In 2018, after passing the higher secondary examination, he got admission at Visva Bharati to pursue his bachelor degree. After that he started pursuing a course in MSc (Physics) IIT-Guwahati in 2021. He then appeared for the recruitment test at the Bhabha Nuclear Research Centre (BNRC). He has already cleared the written and oral examinations of BNRC and will now undergo a year-long training as a junior nuclear scientist at the Indira Gandhi Research Centre (IGRC), which is under BNRC. He will be working on nuclear fuel cycles. After one year of training, he will be appointed as a scientist. “Since childhood, my ambition has been to become a scientist. I had no fixed time for studying. I used to study for 8 to 10 hours a day,” stated Kaustab.

Rumu Ghosh, his mother, said: “His hardwork has finally paid off. We always tried to support him as much as we could. We had to work very hard to ensure that he could continue with his education. We are so happy for him.”