Roopa Mishra

Roopa Mishra (ରୁପା ମିଶ୍ର; born 9 June 1977) is an Indian bureaucrat who topped the I.A.S. Exam as a woman for the first time from Odisha in 2003.

Personal background
Mishra was born in Angul, Odisha state on 9 June 1977 and went to various schools in the state. She completed her schooling from St. Joseph's Girls High School at Cuttack before studying in DAV Public School at Bhubaneswar. She went on to Ravenshaw College to study Science at the Intermediate Level before doing her Graduation in Commerce from Buxi Jagabandhu Bidyadhar College, also known as BJB College in Bhubaneswar in 1998. She used to score more than 90% throughout her academic career and used to be a good debater as well.

Daughter of bureaucrat Shri. Dandanirodh Mishra and academician Dr Usha Mishra, Ms. Roopa Mishra is the sixth All India Civil Service Examinaton topper from the state of Odisha. The other five toppers have been Sitakanta Mohapatra (in 1961), Purna Hota (in 1962), Lalit Mansingh (in 1963), Hrushikesh Panda (in 1979) and Prafulla Chandra Mishra (in 1982).

She was blessed with a son (Aadarsh Tripathy) on 8 July 2008.

Professional background
In 2004, Roopa Mishra became the First Oriya Lady as well as the First Married Lady of the country to top All India Civil Service Examination of 2003. Roopa Mishra, an MBA from Utkal University in Bhubaneshwar, had topped the 2003 Civil Services examination while Ms. Ashima Garg from Delhi University had stood second amongst the three lakh candidates who had applied for the 2003 Indian Civil Service Examination conducted by the Union Public Service Commission.

She has been selected in the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) in her home cadre of Odisha. She underwent her district training (2005–2006) as Assistant Collector at Mayurbhanj under Shri. V.K.Pandian, IAS, the District Magistrate and Collector of the district. She had also worked in the capacity of Block Development Officer of Khordha district 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. This is an achievement for the best performance 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 Khordha district from September, 2006 to May, 2008. She was then posted as the Deputy Secretary in Home Department of the Government of Odisha, then known as Orissa, from May 2008 to July 2009. She got promoted as the District Magistrate and Collector and her first posting was in Nabarangpur district from July 2009 to May 2010. During her stint as DM & Collector of Nabarangpur, she had taken prompt and stern action against few School authorities allegedly involved in molestation of female students of the school. She had also done commendable job in the health care sector for the poor in the district toiled hard for successful implementation of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act Scheme (MGNREGS) and worked towards industrialization within the district by working towards establishing a processing complex for processing of the abundant maize produced in the district during her brief stint in this district. In June 2010 she was transferred as the District Magistrate and Collector of the Kalahandi district. During her tenure over here, she was instrumental in the bringing back normalcy to the power distribution machinery (the district used to have close to 16 hours of power cut everyday) and hence establishing faith of common people in the Government machinery, establishment of the Civil Judge court in Bhawanipatna, being one of the early adopters of the online grievance cell launched by the Government of Odisha (e-abhijoga), addressing the environmental issues to help in a fair decision of the Vedanta Resources’ alumina refinery and power plant at Lanjigarh in Odisha, and playing 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/ Kalahandi in particular and Odisha in general. 

In August 2011 she was transferred from Kalahandi to Khordha district as the District Magistrate and Collector. She had earlier worked as the sub-collector of one of the sub-divisions of the same district. This was her third transfer and third stint as a District Magistrate and Collector in three years in various districts of Odisha since July 2009.

In her present posting as Collector & District Magistrate of Khurdha District, she has taken some commendable steps towards making her office work in a more of digital way. She thought of coming out of the age old strangle of official communication being processed manually at a snails pace, now she has implemented eDak application that will automate the movement of files, notices, direction, advices etc in a complete digital way. Now with help of online tracking system she can check which file & info is pending & halted at which officer's desk also the reason for that. This will help her get into a more swifter action mode with.

Adding to the laurels she was awarded as the "DISTRICT WITH BEST ICT INTERVENTION" in the recently concluded eOdisha-2013 event organised by Department of IT, Odisha & OCAC. This shows her ability to think a step beyond the normal cicumstances & adapt to changes.