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

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.

Thanks people, silent on future plans

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.

Akhilesh accuses BJP govt of forcing officers to quit

Meanwhile, amid Mittal’s resignation, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav alleged that honest officials in Uttar Pradesh were being pressured under the BJP government to indulge in “unethical and illegal” activities, forcing them to quit the service.

“There are countless other instances where the BJP government puts pressure on officials to carry out unethical and illegal acts, because of which they are even forced to resign,” the Opposition leader wrote in a post on X.

उप्र में भाजपा सरकार के भ्रष्टाचार के कारण ईमानदार अधिकारी निम्नलिखित कई तरह के दबाव में हैं :

– कमीशनख़ोरी से भ्रष्टाचार करने
– ⁠भाजपाइयों को टेंडर दिलवाने में हेराफेरी करने
– ⁠ट्रांसफ़र-पोस्टिंग को धंधा बनाते हुए पैसे लेने
– चंदा-पर्ची कटवाकर वसूली करवाने ⁠
– ⁠विपक्ष पर…

— Akhilesh Yadav (@yadavakhilesh) August 30, 2026

He alleged that officials were being forced to indulge in corruption through commissions, manipulate tenders to favour BJP workers, turn transfers and postings into a business, and facilitate collection through donation slips. He also alleged that pressure was being exerted on officials to register false cases against Opposition leaders, suppress cases of custodial deaths, facilitate fake encounters of political opponents and extort money by threatening encounters.
“Governance and administration cannot function without honest officials,” he added.

Her journey: IIT-Delhi student to London trader to Deoria DM

Mittal, who studied at IIT Delhi and IIM Bangalore, said she grew up in “humble surroundings” and had initially dreamt of a successful life. After her studies, she got a job as an exotic derivatives trader in London. But being away from India left her feeling that “something was incomplete”. “My education, my confidence, the strength to walk tall anywhere in the world — all of it was a debt owed to this soil. That debt had to be repaid,” she wrote.

She returned to India and became an IAS officer.

She was awarded the Ashok Bambawale Award at LBSNAA, Mussoorie, for outstanding performance during the two-year IAS training programme.