Hasmukh Adhia: Accountant, IAS, PhD in Yoga and new financial services secretary

MANY may still remember prime minister Narendra Modi’s photo at a yoga session with Gujarat bureaucrats when he was the state chief minister and key driver in a programme called Karmayogi Abhiyan, which was meant for transforming Gujarat bureaucrats into Karmayogis by imparting training. The training included working skill, pranayam and yoga. And one of the key bureaucrats who had impressed the then chief minister was 1981 batch IAS Dr Hasmukh Adhia. Now Adhia, who has a degree in accountancy and PhD in Yoga, has been appointed as secretary in the department of financial services. He is also a…
Gold medalist from Indian Institute of Management. He did his research on Yoga from Swami Vivekanand Yoga University, Bangalore.
Adhia belongs to Gujarat, and is, in fact, one of the few prominent Gujarati officers in the state bureaucracy usually dominated by babus of North and South India.
In 1990s, he was on a Central deputation working as deputy secretary and then director in industry ministry. Then, he went on a foreign posting for United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO). He also served as MD in Gujarat Industrial Investment Corporation and executive director in Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Ltd.
Between 2004 and 2006, Adhia was the principal secretary to the then CM Modi. He was also the principal secretary in Gujarat’s education department.
He has written a number of articles in leading newspapers and also published papers including “Inventing government through HRM Strategies” (2007) and “My Note to Myself” (2008).