Civil servants spend their careers behind files, postings and transfer orders. But every now and then, one of them looks past the paperwork and decides to fix something that’s actually broken — a hot rooftop, a dying water table, a child who’s never touched a tree. This week, we’re tracing four such stories of officers who chose to do more than just their job.
In 1952, She Became India’s First Woman IAS Officer Despite Being Told It Wasn’t for Women
When Anna Rajam Malhotra cleared the civil services exam in 1951, the interview board suggested she try the foreign service instead — it was “more suited to women.” Chief Minister C. Rajagopalachari himself wasn’t keen on women in public service. She argued her case anyway: “You should give me a chance.” She got it, trained alongside men in riding and shooting, and was posted as sub-collector of Tirupattur.
“She had to learn how to ride, to shoot, she had to do everything that men had to,” her sister later said. Here’s how she went on to spend a career breaking barriers no woman had been allowed near.
How IAS Officer Supriya Sahu Helped Cool Chennai Homes by 8°C With Just White Paint
Chennai’s summer heat was turning low-income homes into ovens, with cooling appliances out of reach for many. IAS officer Supriya Sahu’s answer was sitting right above people’s heads — the rooftops. Under Tamil Nadu’s Urban Heat Mitigation Project, her team began coating rooftops with solar-reflective white paint that bounces sunlight away instead of trapping it.
The Cool Roof initiative rolled out across 200 public schools and vulnerable neighbourhoods. See how this simple idea ended up impressing the United Nations.
This Delhi IRS Officer’s ‘School of Trees’ Is Helping Children Learn From Nature
Rohit Mehra, an Indian Revenue Service officer, noticed something on family walks: children could recognise brand logos instantly but went blank in front of a peepal or a neem tree. So he and his wife Geetanjali started the School of Trees in their Kidwai Nagar society garden — a free weekend programme with no textbooks, just bark, soil, seeds and questions.
“This isn’t just a tree but where life begins,” he tells children, running his fingers over the trunk. Take a look at how a few weekend walks turned into a movement he now calls his reason to live.
IAS Officer Turns Farmer, Shows How to Grow Paddy Using Just 25% Water
Punjab’s groundwater could fall below 1,000 feet by 2039, and paddy — a crop that isn’t even native to the state — is the biggest reason why. Kahan Singh Pannu watched this happen for years as Punjab’s Agriculture Secretary. When he retired in 2020, instead of stepping away, he went back to his own village fields to test a fix: seeds sown on raised beds, with water going only into the furrows instead of flooding the whole plot.
The idea was to stop fighting weeds with water and start growing rice the way it actually needs to grow. Find out how this 64-year-old’s experiment is now cutting water use by 75% across Punjab’s farms.
