Civic Chief at Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation, Abhijit Bangar, transformed a 3-acre wasteland in Kopar Khairane of Navi Mumbai into a mini-forest by adopting the Miyawaki forest technique.

In 2020, District Collector Harshika Singh launched a programme to ensure 100 per cent functional literacy in Mandla, a tribal-dominated district in Madhya Pradesh. Within two years, the district became India’s first fully functionally literate district.

In 2021, IPS Tejaswi Satpute, SP of Solapur Rural in Maharashtra, launched Operation Parivartan to crack down on hand-operated illicit liquor distilleries in the district. It was a four-point action plan that combined soft policing. A year later, nearly 80% of the illegal distilleries in Solapur (rural) have shut down, and over 650 families involved in the trade have been rehabilitated.

IAS Vikram Yadav, district collector of Ambala in Haryana, mobilised government machinery to prevent stubble burning over hundreds of acres of land in the district. His efforts helped cut stubble burning in the district by 80%, by helping farmers use alternate methods to remove or reuse wheat and paddy stubble.

IFS Officer Dr Abdul Qayum, currently posted as Deputy Conservator of Forests in Chandigarh, devised a mobile app named E-Forest Fire for predicting forest fires. The app has helped in reducing forest fires in Arunachal Pradesh by 31% in comparison to the five-year data collected from 2015–2020.

Mishal Queenie D’Costa, IRS, Deputy Director of Indirect Taxes at Mumbai Customs caught Nigerian drug peddlers in a daring operation involving 1.9 kg of drug tablets. She chased the culprits and physically stopped them from escaping until the full force arrived at the scene. Officer Mishal was honoured with a bravery award by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman for her extraordinary bravery.

Dr R Meenakshi Sundaram, an IAS officer from the Uttarakhand cadre implemented various schemes to help the local farmers and agriculturists in the state. With projects worth more than Rs 3,632 crore, he has helped around 4.5 lakh rural farmers.

In 2021, IPS Ankit Goyal launched the ‘Police Dadalora Khidki’ initiative, a single-delivery system for all public services in the Maoist-infested Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra. His initiative helped more than 2.5 lakh people in the district. Currently, he serves as the superintendent of Pune rural police.

District Collector of Tiruvallur district in Tamil Nadu, Dr Alby John Varghese’s initiative, Siragugal Bricks, is a community-owned brick kiln for rescued bonded labourers. Currently, hundreds of labourers and their families are benefitting from the initiative by co-owning and operating a brick kiln.