Stories of five IAS officers who turned into entrepreneurs
The Indian Administrative Service (IAS) is the most prestigious and sought-after Civil Service of the country. The post of an IAS Officer is highly-coveted and becoming an IAS officer is a dream for many. However, there are some IAS officers who have quit the service to do something different and become entrepreneurs and start their own businesses. Here are 5 IAS officers turned entrepreneurs.
Pravesh Sharma, a 1982-batch IAS officer, resigned from the service to set up a start-up named Sabziwala. He quit the IAS after working as the Managing Director of the Small Farmers' Agri-business Consortium (SFAC) for five years. Sabziwala is a retail fruits and vegetables (F&V) chain that sources and delivers quality fresh produce directly from farmers to consumers, ensuring everyone gets a fair price.
Syed Sabahat Azim, a doctor and a 2000-batch IAS officer, left the bureaucracy to establish Glocal Healthcare Systems in 2010. It is a start-up that aims to make quality healthcare services accessible to the rural population by setting up low-cost yet efficient hospitals across villages.
Next on the list is Vivek Kulkarni, a 1979-batch IAS officer who quit the service in 2004 to kickstart his entrepreneurial journey after working in the government for 25 years. At the time, he was the Information Technology (IT) and Biotechnology secretary of Karnataka. In 2005, he co-founded Brickwork India with his wife Sangeeta Kulkarni. Brickwork provides Remote Executive Assistance services to global companies.
Sanjay Gupta, a 1985-batch IAS officer, left the service to start Neesa Group in 2002. He is also a civil engineer from IIT Roorkee. Today, Neesa Group is a multi-crore business conglomerate that engages in hospitality, education, agritech, information technology, infrastructure, and food processing.
Roman Saini cracked the UPSC Civil Services Examination at 22 in 2013 to become an IAS officer. However, he resigned mid-training from the IAS in 2016 in order to provide high-quality online education services and co-founded Unacademy. Today, Unacademy is one of the country's fastest-growing education start-ups and one of the largest online learning platforms, well known for its free UPSC exam coaching.
