Meet N. Sindhuja, the young Revenue Divisional Officer & Sub Divisional Magistrate of Erode. This enterprising lady was born in Namakkal and brought up in Salem. Her Father Natarajan is an Inspector of Police while her mother Dhanalakshmi is a homemaker.
Sindhuja has one younger brother who studied MBBS in Stanley Medical College in Chennai and is now serving as a government doctor.
She schooled at Jayarani Matriculation H.S. School in Salem till class X and completed her higher secondary education in Vetri Vikaas Girls Higher Secondary School in Salem. She followed it up with a BE degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering at the Kumaraguru College of Technology in Coimbatore.
Right from a young age, Sindhuja was fascinated with the civil services and her ambition was to become an IAS officer. She started preparing sincerely for the civil services exam since 2015. She also wrote many other competitive exams. In 2017, she appeared for the TNPSC Group I examination. She fared extremely will and got selected in February 2019. She obtained 6th rank in the State in the exam.
Meanwhile, she also appeared for the BSRB exam and got selected by Union Bank of India where she worked for a short period.
After getting selected by the TNPSC, she quit the bank job and took up the post of Revenue Divisional Officer in Erode.
An RDO is vested with the powers of a District Collector. She also has exective magistrate powers as the post she occupies is also called as Sub Divisional Magistrate. Her job entails taking care of law and order, issuing patta, being a caretaker of revenue records, supervising ration shops and TASMAC, issuing community certificates to members of Scheduled Tribes.
She also has the powers of a revenue court and is empowered to register late births and deaths that are registered after a period of one year.
As per the Senior Citizens Act, she has powers to grant maintenance to aged parents and even to cancel settlements done in favour of children if they neglect their aged parents. She is also invested with powers of land transfer, land acquisition etc.
Besides this, she is empowered to conduct an enquiry in dowry deaths if a woman dies within 7 years of marriage.
Sindhuja is married to a businessman Saran Kumar and the couple has 2 children- a 3 year old daughter Magizh Annya and a 1 year old son Hrithik Veera.
As her work keeps her on her toes, she hardly gets time to watch programmes on TV. If at all she gets to watch TV, it is the daily news.
She unwinds by doing gardening or by reading books whenever she gets that rare free moment.
She likes badminton and PV Sindhu is her favourite sportsperson. Her favourite colour is red and she prefers the traditional saree and salwar suit when it comes to outfits.
Sindhuja is hopeful to get IAS conferred on her shortly and when that happens, her dream of becoming an IAS officer will come true.
Juliana Sridhar is a lawyer and columnist
