The IAS officer, from newspaper boy to GVMC Commissioner

Visakhapatnam: The IAS officer Lakshmisha who assumed charge as Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Commissioner on Saturday afternoon, was son of a poor farmer and even served as a newspaper boy while studying in Intermediate.

Hailing from a remote village Holugundanahalli in Karnataka state, he recalls that his mother Lakshmamma after toiling in household chores, also used to go to the fields along with his father Gangamuthaiah as agricultural labourer to support the family. Acute poverty strengthened his resolve to study hard and come up in life. While studying Intermediate, he worked as a newspaper boy early in the morning to earn Rs.300 per month. He gave Rs.100 to his mother and kept Rs.200 as pocket money.

Lakshmisha joined B.Sc. Agriculture course hearing that it would fetch him a decent bank job. After B.Sc., he got a junior research fellowship and moved to study M.Sc. in Allahabad. from there, he reached Delhi for Ph.D., after he received senior



fellowship and joined the Indian Institute of Agriculture Research and became an agri scientist. He also studied psychology. 

During his stint as a scientist, Lakshmisha, encouraged by his friends, got the idea to appear for civil services. He consulted his elder brother Venkataramanaiah who goaded him into preparing for the civil exams.

He appeared for civils in 2009 and when he did not make it, made another attempt in 2010 to get selected for IFS. But he was not happy with his Himachal cadre posting and made one more attempt, his fourth, in 2013 to bag 275th rank and was selected in Andhra Pradesh cadre. After training in Kurnool, he got his first posting as Sub-Collector in Nuziveedu of Krishna district, and later served as Parvatipuram ITDA Project Officer, and Joint Collector of East Godavari district before taking up the prestigious assignment in the GVMC on the eve of Visakhapatnam getting upgraded as the executive capital of Andhra Pradesh.