Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer Tukaram Mundhe — the Commissioner of Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration— is leading a massive crackdown against food and drug adulteration in the State. Several establishments have been raided, shut down, and issued show cause notices over the last few months, with seizures and police complaints following. Many of these have enjoyed an iconic status for generations.
Mr. Mundhe, however, says he wouldn’t relent till he ensures safe food and drugs for everyone in the State. While the Bombay High Court cautioned him against ‘using a sword to kill a mosquito’, several have lauded his effort.
Who is Tukaram Mundhe?
Born into a poor agricultural family in Beed in Maharashtra’s developmentally backlogged region of Marathwada, Mr. Mundhe says he grew up witnessing the consequences of the government’s failure to deliver on its welfare promises. Agricultural distress and debt were a permanent feature of his life. He worked on his family’s subsistence farm and sold vegetables alongside his parents at the weekly market. He would wake up at 2 a.m. to water the crops by hand. Growing up in a mud-brick house, he saw his family’s dependence on monsoon and the impact of scarcity of water. He walked barefoot to his local Zilla Parishad school.
He says he watched his family carry burdens imposed by the system and it inspired him to enter the administrative services.
He decided to enter the system, not to belong to it, but to change it, he says.
With no coaching academy, no network, no family precedence in public service, Mr. Mundhe cleared the UPSC exams in 2005 and ranked 20th nationally. He was allotted the home cadre of Maharashtra.
Education
Mr. Mundhe completed his bachelor’s degree from Government College of Arts and Science in Aurangabad (now Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar) in 1996. In 1998, he completed his MA in Political Science from Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University.
He continued his academic pursuits after joining the civil services, with a particular interest in fiscal policy and financial analysis. He has completed courses in leadership, financial market regulation, tax analysis and revenue forecasting, fiscal policy and macroeconomic management, and disaster management.
Awards and transfers
Over more than two decades of service, Mr. Mundhe has received several recognitions and awards for his administrative work. His approach, however, has also made him unpopular in the system. He has been transferred 25 times in 21 years of service, and has not completed a full tenure in any of his postings. An IAS officer typically completes a tenure of around three years in a posting, while Mr. Mundhe has frequently been transferred and, at times, kept without a posting.
He has received recognition for his work in water conservation, urban governance, public health, transport innovation and social inclusion. He received the Maharashtra government’s Best Collector Award for all-round excellence in district governance in 2015-16 and the National Award for Social Justice and Empowerment from the Union Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment.
He was also referred to as the “waterman of Maharashtra” for his work in water conservation. The Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation received the SKOCH Order of Merit for its e-toilets and seismic retrofitting initiatives during his tenure as Municipal Commissioner. In 2017, he received the National Award for the Best Integrated Traffic Management System.
Guiding principles
Early in his career, Mr. Mundhe developed a three-point framework that he says has guided his decisions ever since: every action must be legal, morally correct and in the public interest. “If any two conditions are met — including legality — I act. There is no hesitation, no gradual approach, no negotiation with what is wrong simply because it is powerful,” he says.
In his first field posting, he took on the sand mafia and received death threats. In Solapur, the sand mafia allegedly attempted to physically eliminate him. He returned to work the next day and continued with the same programme. At the Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Mahamandal Limited (PMPML), he sacked 158 contract drivers for chronic absenteeism in 2017-18. The decision triggered opposition from unions and drew a strong political reaction. When he took over as Health Commissioner in 2022, he ordered midnight inspections at Primary Health Centres, linked salaries to biometric attendance and initiated action against doctors allegedly running private clinics during government working hours. He was transferred in 2023.
During his tenure as Municipal Commissioner of Navi Mumbai in 2016, three multi-crore projects had already been approved, including a ₹20-crore marble statue and a ₹163-crore solar project at Morbe Dam. Mr. Mundhe cancelled both, calling them unnecessary, and redirected the funds towards making the city more accessible to persons with disabilities and improving civic infrastructure.
His “Walk with the Commissioner” initiative also became popular. Every Sunday, he would go for a morning walk and invite citizens to join him, giving them an opportunity to raise complaints, suggestions and concerns directly with him. The initiative, however, also brought him into conflict with elected representatives. Corporators across political parties called a bandh against him, while citizens launched an online petition that garnered more than 6,000 signatures and approached the Chief Minister seeking to prevent his transfer. He was moved out in 2017.
Looking back, Mr. Mundhe says he is prepared to work with full capacity in whatever role the government assigns him. In his current posting at the FDA, he is unsure whether he will complete the standard three-year tenure, but says he already has a long wishlist for cleaning up the system.
Published – August 15, 2026 07:06 pm IST
