‘I thought I had come to give something’: Divya Mittal quits IAS after 13 years

Divya Mittal, who gained popularity for bringing piped water to a remote hilly village in Mirzapur district of Uttar Pradesh when she was posted there as District Magistrate three years ago, on Sunday announced her resignation from the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) after a 13-year stint.

Announcing her resignation in a social media post, the 42-year-old officer of the Uttar Pradesh cadre said she was now ready to “move on” from a journey in which she had learnt more from the people she served than she had given them.

“Today, I have voluntarily stepped away from an unforgettable 13-year journey by resigning from the IAS,” the 2013-batch IAS officer said in a social media post. In the past 13 years, Mittal has been posted in several districts, including Meerut, Gonda, Kanpur Nagar, Bareilly, and Sant Kabir Nagar.

She served as district magistrate of Mirzapur from September 2022 to September 2023, and later as that of Deoria from July 2024. In May this year, she was appointed Special Secretary, Revenue Department, in Lucknow. Mirzapur success, followed by rough patch Mittal’s tenure in Mirzapur brought her considerable public attention in 2023, particularly after her intervention led to the provision of piped water to Lahuria Dah village, where residents had long depended on tankers for drinking water.

But soon after, she was transferred out of Mirzapur, leading to public outrage in the district. She was subsequently placed on the waiting list from September 4, 2023, to February 1, 2024. On February 1, she was posted as CEO of the Uttar Pradesh Rural Road Development Agency and later served as district magistrate in Deoria.

Today my heart is full and I am overwhelmed with emotions. Water is flowing in Lahuriya deh (लहुरियादह) and through my eyes and the eyes of people there. Even after 75 years of Independence, people of Lahuria Deh village, Mirzapur did not have access to water!

Situated on a… pic.twitter.com/zdaOvsGf4v — Divya Mittal (@divyamittal_IAS) August 30, 2023 Her stint in Mirzapur continued to be discussed even after she left the district. She had developed a distinctive administrative style, using social media to communicate government schemes and administrative decisions directly to people and responding publicly to complaints.

In her social media post, she remembered her Mirzapur posting most vividly. Recalling the day water finally reached the remote hilly village, she wrote about an elderly woman who said nothing. Instead, with trembling hands, the woman touched her head and blessed her.

“The position may be left behind today, but that touch will never leave me in this lifetime,” Mittal wrote. She said Mirzapur had taught her that “impossible” is not a fact, but just an opinion. Her farewell note also recalled families receiving land rights for the first time, a differently-abled person getting an opportunity to live with dignity, and farmers finally getting water to their fields.

“Behind every government file is a person, and upholding their dignity is what justice truly means,” she wrote. Mittal said she initially believed she had entered public service to give something to society. “I was a fool to think I had come to give something.

The truth is, I received the most, and that debt only grew deeper,” she wrote. She credited the people, officers, colleagues, and staff members who stood by her through her career. “People were happier for my joy than I was myself,” she said, adding that their trust gave her the courage to continue even when she was “exhausted or broken”.

Mittal did not specify what she had planned to do after quitting the IAS. In her final message, Mittal said the dreams she had once seen for herself had already come true. “Now, it was time to live the dreams I saw for my people,” she wrote.

Sources said that she plans to pursue academics and book writing. There are also speculations about her joining politics.