Harsha Bhattad, the girl topper of Chartered Accountancy (CA) final
examinations held by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India
(ICAI) is from Pune, Maharashtra.
ICAI CA final exam 2014 results
were announced on August 8. Bhattad scored 574 out of a total of 800
marks, bagging rank #2 with 71.75% in the all-India examination.
CA topper this year is
Sanjay Nawandhar
from Jaipur while the second topper Kunal Jethani from Jodhpur.
Nawandhar scored 72.88% marks. Both Nawandhar and Jethani hail from
Rajasthan which
also had the honour of producing UPSC 2014 topper Gaurav
Agrawal and JEE Advanced 2014 topper Chitraang Murdia.
A daughter of grocery store owner, Bhattad reportedly studied for up
to 16 hours a day to fulfill her father’s ambitions. She gives credit to
her family, friends and teachers and also the colleagues where she
worked as an intern for her success. She said that her colleagues kept
her motivated throughout her CA exam preparation.
Harsha’s interests lie in business journalism though. She said,
“While most candidates studying for CA do B.Com, I chose to do my
graduation in Economics from Fergusson College as I am more interested
in humanities. I hope to merge my interests with my knowledge in
Finance. My accountancy background should prove to be an added advantage
in taking up career as a business journalist.” Harsha is currently
pursuing MA in Economics from Pune University.
Like Nawandhar, Bhattad’s elder sister is a CA too. Harsha shared
that when she had started CA preparations, she used to study for about
10 hours a day. She started devoting more time only later.
Success rate in the CA exams held in November 2014 was dismally low at 3.11%. Success rate in CA final exams held by
ICAI in May 2014 has improved by 4.18% to touch 7.29% – but it is still quite low.