Ashwini Bhide (IAS) Height, Age, Husband, Children, Family, Biography

Some Lesser Known Facts About Ashwini Bhide

• Ashwini Bhide was born in Sangli district in Western Maharashtra.

• Her father worked in the State Bank of India, a job that had transfers, and her mother was a homemaker. Even when Bhide was young, she learned in Marathi medium schools and in a small village.

• She was given IAS as a career option by a relative who worked in the Mantralaya first.

•  She was ranked high through SSC and completed her BA course in literature in Willingdon College in Sangli.

• She has finished her postgraduate degree in Marathi literature and has an MBA.

• Along with her post graduation in Pune, she started preparing to take the Maharashtra Public Service Commission exam and the UPSC exam.

• In 1995, Bhide passed the UPSC examination. She was the first of women candidates, and the ninth in the country.

• Ashwini and Satish Bhide lived and worked together since the period of their IAS studies in 1995-1997 in the Lal Bahadur Shastri Academy, Mussoorie.

• They both were of similar batch. They had fallen in love, and got married in 1999. Satish was appointed Chief Executive Officer of the Zilla Parishad at Kolhapur after the marriage.

• The two districts were located closely but they were divided into different divisions. Sindhudurg became a part of Konkan division, and Kolhapur became a part of Pune division.

• The two decided to have a date on Saturdays and Sundays but very often ministerial visits and official meetings intervened. During a period of approximately six months, they did not have a lot of time together.

• They both took their job as a serious priority and never compromised. Later, they applied for a joint transfer and the request got approved.

• The two went to Nagpur jointly and lived there between 2000 and 2003. During this time, they had two children, Janhvi and Malhar.

• In 2003, both got posted to Mumbai. In 2012, Satish quit government employment and now owns a business.

• Both Ashwini and Satish are not religious practitioners and their families noted that many years ago.

• Her initial station became assistant collector, Kolhapur district.

• Her next job was as the CEO of the Zila Parishad of Sindhudurg and Nagpur where she took up water management and rural development.

• She then served as a Deputy Secretary to the Governor and thereafter took up the position of the Additional Metropolitan Commissioner in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority.

• Bhide worked on large projects during her stay with MMRDA.

• These were the Eastern Freeway, Sahar Elevated Road, Monorail Phase I and a few flyovers in the city.

• As a manager, she became the managing director of the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation between 2015 and 2020 and managed Metro 3, the underground railway between Colaba and Bandra to SEEPZ.

• The one contentious issue in the Metro 3 construction was the proposed car shed in the Aarey Colony.

• The cutting of trees at the site was opposed by the environmentalists, which is the green lung of the city to most of the people in Mumbai.

• Bhide opposed the demolition of the car shed at Aarey greatly. This dispute led to more than 90 litigations.

• She was also under the opinion that where the dialogue has hit its bottom, the courts are the right route towards the solution.

• However, her administration style is thorough, upright and clean, as exemplified by her work at MMRC, according to R Ramana, the director of planning and real estate development.

• He claimed that she examined problems thoroughly, listened to the interests of the stakeholders and attempted to discover solutions that could gratify the ordinary citizens, which they deserve.

• In January 2018, The Mumbai Police lodged an FIR at the Bandra Kurla Complex police station against green activist Avijit Michael.

• Messages exchanged by Michael with Bhide led to the allegations of harassment by the police about the series of messages sent by the former about cutting of trees at Aarey Colony to construct the Metro 3 cars shed.

• A Bombay High Court division bench of Justices Sunil Shukre and MM Sathaye rejected this FIR on 5 March 2023.

• The bench did not consider anything offensive in the messages. The court has observed that Michael seemed to be concerned about the forest and regarded it as fulfilling an important role in the city.

• The government led by the Maha Vikas Aghadi led by Uddhav Thackeray assumed charge in November 2019.

• Bhide was stripped of her post of managing director of MMRC by the MVA government and made an additional municipal commissioner in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation.

• The MVA government also maintained a construction in the Aarey Colony station based on the need to conserve forest cover in the area.

• Bhide as a further commissioner at BMC contributed significantly to the coronavirus pandemic management in Mumbai.

• After the Eknath Shinde led MahaYuti government formed in June 2022, Bhide went back to MMRC as managing director with the task of completing Metro 3.

• The road between Aarey Colony and BKC was open to traffic just before the state assembly election.

• Bhide was made Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis in the Maharashtra government, on 13 December 2024.

• She retained her extra role as a managing director of MMRC. The general administration department issued the orders and stated that this additional charge would continue until further notice.

• In January 2024, Bhide wrote about British Airways on social media, claiming that they were racist.

• She claimed that the airline had declassified her seat on with premium economy class during the check-in counters at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport in Mumbai.

• Her post presented questions to the airline on whether they were practicing a discriminatory or even a racist policy and that customers were also being downgraded on baseless claims of being over booked yet the difference of the prices was not returned or the amount not given to the customers.

• She stated that she had heard that this was a common practice by the airline.

• On 31 March 2026, the Maharashtra government made Bhide the commissioner of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation.

• She became the first woman to occupy the post in the history of the civic body.

• Bhide succeeded Bhushan Gagrani who retired that day after a two year tenure as BMC commissioner.

• When Bhide was appointed, she worked as Additional Chief Secretary in the Chief Minister Office.

• Sanjay Mukherjee, Aseem Gupta and Bhide were the top IAS officials eligible to assume the top position in BMC.

• Bhide was driven by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Gupta was favored by Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde.

• The two leaders also agreed on Bhide’s appointment in a meeting at the Varsha bungalow of Chief Minister.

• Her appointment aroused interest within the administrative circles because she bypassed a number of senior IAS officers to the position.