News Desk: Roopa Mishra is the first Odia as well as the first married woman in the country to top the Indian Administrative Service (I.A.S) examination in 2004. She is currently serving as the Collector of Khordha district in Odisha.

 

Born on June 9, 1977 to bureaucrat Dandanirodh Mishra and academician Dr Usha Mishra in Angul, Odisha, strongly believes in leading by example.

 

The bureaucrat has completed her schooling from St. Joseph's Girls High School at Cuttack. She studied science the Intermediate level at the state's prestigious Ravenshaw College.

 

Later, she switched over to Commerce at BJB College in Bhubaneswar in 1998. She completed her post-graduation in management from Utal University. She has been an excellent student with the average score of 90% throughout her academic career. She used to be a good debater as well.

 

She tied the knot with Anshuman Tripathy in 2000, who was at that time a student of the IIM Calcutta. She was blessed with a son Aadarsh Tripathy on July 8, 2008.Before preparing for the national level examination, she was teaching at the Directorate of Distant and Continuing Education (DDCE) of the Utkal University for over a year.

 

She topped the 2003 Civil Services examination from Odisha amongst three lakh candidates who had applied for the 2003 Indian Civil Service Examination.

 

She is the sixth All India Civil Service Examination topper from Odisha after Sitakanta Mohapatra (in 1961), Purna Hota (in 1962), Lalit Mansingh (in 1963), Hrushikesh Panda (in 1979) and Prafulla Chandra Mishra (in 1982).

 

After her success in the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC)-conducted examination, she had said, "I aim to make a difference. It is not whether you are a man or a woman, but the kind of person you are what's important".

 

She attributed her success to her strong faith in God, handwork, parents, in-laws and teachers. But the entire credit she gave to her husband, who encouraged her to appear the examination after two years of marriage.

 

According to her, many factors can make a person successful, but one mistake could make everything crash. She is thankful to God that she grew up in a very encouraging environment where she interacted with "leading people from every walk of life".

 

An Odissi dancer since her childhood, Roopa Mishra achieved the success in her first attempt having two new subjects - Psychology & Public Administration - for the examination.

 

Professional Career:

 

The Indian bureaucrat took her district training (2005–2006) as Assistant Collector at Mayurbhanj under V.K.Pandian, IAS, the District Magistrate and Collector of the district. She had also worked in the capacity of Block Development Officer of Khurda and as Tahsildar of Baripada during 1 year district training.

 

She brought back laurels again by winning the "Director’s Shield for being First in order of Merit of the IAS 2004 Batch" at Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration. The achievement was based on the marks obtained in the UPSC Examination, Foundation Course Written Examination and Assessment, Phase-I Written Examination and Assessment, Phase-II Assessment and District Training.

 

She was posted as the Sub Collector of Khurda from September 2006 to May 2008. She was then posted as the Deputy Secretary in Home Department of the Government of Odisha from May 2008 to July 2009. She was promoted as the District Magistrate and Collector in Nabarangpur district from July 2009 to May 2010. She had taken stern action against few school authorities allegedly involved in molestation of female student of the school during those period.

 

She was also commended for efforts in health sector in poor district of the state by implementing successfully the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act Scheme (MGNREGS).

 

Roopa Mishra was transferred as the Collector in June 2010 to Kalahandi where she had played a key role by bringing back the normalcy to the power distribution sector. The district was facing over 16 hours power cut everyday, which was the matter of concern.

 

She won the faith of people when she established the Civil Judge court in Bhawanipatna. She was one of the early adopters of the online grievance cell launched by Government of Odisha (e-abhijoga), which was addressing the environmental issues to help in a fair decision of the Vedanta Resources’ alumina refinery and power plant at Lanjigarh.

 

She played an active role as Director of the Lanjigarh Project Area Development Foundation (LPADF) in advising, supervising, monitoring and implementing various Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities of the Vedanta Resources group for the development of the people of Lanjigarh in Kalahandi.

 

She was transferred to Khurda in August 2011 as the District Magistrate and Collector. This was her third transfer as the collector in 3 years since 2009.

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