‘I am immensely grateful to the strong women who raised me’

By Amol Maokar

The Indian Adminsitrative Service (IAS) was never in her plan. She was in her final semester at the National Law University, Delhi, and had already got placed in a high-paying job in Mumbai. But, when she decided to go for the IAS, the dedication was tremendous. The rest of the story is about that relentless execution of the task at hand. Saumya Sharma, the dynamic young woman leading a team of officers in the Zilla Parishad (ZP) at Nagpur as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), is not an overnight success. There have been remarkable twists in her story, and hours and hours of ‘blood, sweat, and tears’ before she took that esteemed chair of challenge at the age of 28 years.

“I am immensely grateful to the strong women who raised me,” Saumya Sharma begins by mentioning that in her family, she had always been surrounded by hard-working and progressive women -- her grandmothers from both sides, her mother, and now her mother-in-law. The standards had always been high, she says, adding that she had the benefit of the guidance of such competent women around her. During the entire conversation with ‘The Hitavada’, she carefully avoids all the negative words, and doesn’t quite dwell on the permanent hearing loss she suffered during her teens. Anyone would be tempted to draw some free points with the disability coupon. In fact, she refuses to even give any space to things that are usually shortcomings or hurdles for others. Or, may be, they just don’t occur to her while she moves ahead with her tremendous force of performance. Probably they do not look like stones, but milestones, to her.

Preparing and appearing for the IAS examination is a story in itself. However, there is more to Saumya Sharma’s story. She cleared her prelims along with her law final exams, and moved towards the Mains, the experience of her lifetime, a story that would inspire generations of IAS aspirants. “Those five days were arduous. I had high fever and was bed-ridden for two days. I could not even revise before my three Mains papers, which were on the following three days consecutively. I had prepared so much that I could not let a temporary fever defeat my purpose. So, I decided to go for the exams. It was definitely not easy. All the three days, I was on drips, before, after, and between the papers. I was so weak that it was hard to even hold the pen continuously,” she recalls. She wrote the papers, nevertheless, and cleared them with flying colours -- with All India 9th rank! It shows not just the grit during the exams and her victory over the fever, but also her diligent preparations for the exams in the previous 12 months.

Narrating her brush with the biggies during her visit to the Rashtrapati Bhavan and other offices after topping the IAS, she says, “We met a lot of people doing exceedingly well in their respective fields. If there was a common thread that ran through all those people who stood out, it was their humility. There is a lot of attractiveness in underplaying oneself and letting your work speak for itself.” Her preparatory skills and rapid learning capabilities are showing. Within six months of joining the Maharashtra cadre, she learned to communicate comfortably in Marathi. As the CEO of ZP, which is like a mini-Mantralaya, she has to shift gears every five minutes while monitoring several departments -- Education, Health, Works, Woman and Child Development, Rural Water Supply, Agriculture, Water and Sanitation, Animal Husbandry, District Rural Development Agency, implementation of Jal Jeevan Mission, Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, rural housing scheme, self-help groups, etc.

Even as she was picking up the nitty-gritties of the job, she started a lot of innovative activities. One of them is ‘Coffee with CEO’ for ZP school-children, where she directly interacts with the students once in a week. “I believe, by paying special attention to impressionable children, we can help the next generation develop well. Because that way I can appreciate and encourage their innovations. When they ask me questions, I can instill a belief in them that it is all approachable and achievable,” she explains. To engage people for effective implementation of Government schemes, Nagpur ZP, under her CEO-ship, started a lot of innovative activities. She has partnered with Pratham Foundation on programmes like ‘Nai Kiran’ to educate illiterate women and a child treatment centre (CTC) to reduce malnutrition in tribal areas; boosting women entrepreneurship under State Rural Livelihood Mission through various projects including a hydroponics centre to help women generate income.

As CEO, she has also been putting a special emphasis on the importance of encouraging production of Bhiwapuri Mirchi, which is a GI-tagged speciality of Nagpur. She says, with her team’s efforts, the number of growers of the pure variety GI-tagged Bhiwapuri Mirchi has increased manifold, which has also ensured that the amounts of seeds available for sowing next year will be higher. “We also created a good packaging for them that can compete with other similar brands in the market,” she says. So, is it all tougher than she had expected? “Challenging, yes. But there is no point becoming an IAS officer if you want an easy job,” she quips, adding that the tougher it is, the more exciting it is for her. Does the heart go back to the black coat? Any regrets about not practising as a lawyer? “Not at all, because all the learnings of law come in handy here while dealing with processes every single day. In fact, I find this better, because I can directly execute things ensuring justice and fairness to people,” she concludes happily.