(Success Story) Umme Fardina Adil, AIR 319 (2012)
Umme
Fardina Adil achieved what other women of her community could not do for more
than six decades.
She became the first Muslim woman from India’s northeastern region to clear
the Union Public Service Commission exam since the country became independent.
“Allah’s blessings and my parents’ prayers,” Fardina summed up her success in
an interview to Two Circles.net.
To become an officer of the Indian Administrative Service was her childhood
dream.
“I was obviously very glad to clear the civil services exam at the very first
attempt itself. It means a lot to me,” she added.
Now, she has another dream: make India free of open defecation.
“I have already started my work by research in low cost sanitation
technologies,” said the cheerful woman who now works as a senior programmer with
Accenture Services Private Limited. And her pet project is “Low Cost Sanitation
Technologies.”
“I want to be an IAS so that I can work for society” by efficiently utilizing
government resources, she added.
Several organizations in Guwahati have come forward to celebrate Fardina’s
achievement.
“Assam gave the only President of India from the North East — Fakhruddin Ali
Ahmed. Assam also gave the first and only Muslim woman Chief Minister of the
country – Anwara Timur. But it took Assam 66 years to produce the first Muslim
woman IAS officer,” Mahbubul Hoque, chairperson of the Education Research and
Development Foudnation, the largest educational network in northeastern region,
told a felicitation program.
Fardina was born and brought up in Guwahati, Assam’s commercial capital. She
did her tenth grade from Disney Land High School, Khanapara, and the twelfth
from Cotton College.
The she studied engineering from Mody Institute of Technology and Science,
Rajasthan in Computer Science before taking up the job with the Accenture firm.
She said she would attempt the civil service exam again to improve her rank.
“Since my ranking is 319 this time, I will not get IAS but will definitely try
for this in future,” she explained.
