Biopic on IAS officer Durga Shakti Nagpal who blew lid off Mohali land scam soon

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, January 30

A biopic on IAS officer Durga Shakti Nagpal who blew the lid off a land scam in Mohali during her training in Punjab is in the works. This move had saved the state exchequer a lot of money.

Little do people know that the fiery 2010-batch IAS officer for Uttar Pradesh cadre, who rose to fame for her crackdown against the state’s sand mafia, wanted to opt for Punjab cadre.

Having family roots in Amritsar, Durga Shakti finished her higher secondary from Chandigarh’s Vivek High School.

“It was only after my marriage to a UP officer that I opted for the change of cadre. My first posting as Noida SDM came with its share of challenges. After local villagers complained of the rampant sand mining in the night, I led several raids to prevent the illegal practice. My family and I used to get threats those days but I was convinced to do my duty as long as I was right,” says the officer, who was suspended by the erstwhile Samajwadi Party-led UP Government in 2013 after she halted the illegal construction of a mosque on government land.

What followed was a series of interesting events that will form part of a Deepika Padukone-starrer biopic being made on Durga Shakti’s life. Sunir Khetarpal of “Kesri” fame is producing the film.

The biopic will feature Durga Shakti’s “honourable reinstatement” by the UP Government within 45 days of the suspension and her subsequent appointment as the OSD to former Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh in 2015.

“According to rules at the time, an officer needed to serve nine years in the state cadre to become eligible for a Central posting. Rules were amended and I was brought to the Centre after four years of service in UP,” says Durga Shakti, who will soon return to UP after birthing her second child.

Raring to go, the IAS officer used her maternity leave not just to nurture the newborn but also to pen a memoir capturing an extraordinary journey — the threats she faced from the sand mining mafia, her suspension, reinstatement and most of all her experience of two perfect pregnancies.

Asked what in her experience was the best way to address the illegal sand mining — also rampant in Punjab — Durga Shakti said the only solution was law enforcement, use of satellites for surveillance and back tracing of each of the sophisticated machines the mafia use for their operations.

PENS DOWN MEMOIR

• Raring to go, the IAS officer used her maternity leave not just to nurture the newborn but also to pen a memoir capturing an extraordinary journey — the threats she faced from the sand mining mafia, her suspension, reinstatement and most of all her experience of two perfect pregnancies
• Titled “Grow your baby, not your weight”, the book, endorsed by actors Akshay Kumar and Shilpa Shetty, is a chronicle of Durga Shakti’s pregnancy, birthing and everything in between
• It tells how Durga Shakti used field experiences to manage minimal weight gain and sustained skin health during pregnancy even as she handled one of the most demanding jobs