Initially, she wanted to be a cop like her father, but Niharika Rai later decided to become an administrative officer. Born and brought up in Delhi, the 2005-batch AGMUT-cadre IAS officer thanks God that she got a chance to serve her hometown.
The present Deputy Commissioner of south Delhi, Rai credits her parents and the city for her success. Delhi, she says, has given her a cosmopolitan outlook towards life. “The city broadened my thinking,” says Rai.
Unlike in other metropolitan cities, regionalism is never an issue in Delhi’s melting pot culture, she believes. Her parents are from Varanasi and migrated to Delhi after her father joined the Delhi Police.
Rai, who studied at the Delhi University (DU), says she is indebted to the city for giving her quality education. “I did my graduation from Shri Ram College of Commerce and law from DU Law Faculty. You get the best education and teachers in this city,” says Rai, who cleared the Union Public Service Commission exams at the age of 24.
The capital’s cultural pluralism and freedom to live as one likes also made her more confident. “One gets to know varied people. I never felt any gender bias here. This gave me immense confidence in life,” says the officer, who after taking charge had managed to retrieve government land worth `100 crore that had been encroached for the past several years.
She, however, does miss the cleaner Delhi that she had seen as a child. “There were fewer vehicles then, and now traffic congestion is among the biggest problems plaguing the city,” she says.
“Living in Delhi is like being a drop in the ocean. I have an emotional attachment with the city,” she says. But she is quite concerned about the rising crimes against women in Delhi. “When I was a kid, my parents never feared leaving me alone with a male servant at home. I too was never scared moving about in the city, but nowadays things are different,” says Rai, adding she hopes this changes in the time to come.