Trainee IAS officer Ashish Dahiya died just two days before he was supposed to fly to Jammu and Kashmir for his field training.
His peers, alma mater and family said that his death is a loss, not only for the family, but also for the country.
Mr. Dahiya had served as Deputy Superintendent of Police in Himachal Pradesh for close to three years after which he appeared for the Union Public Service Commission exam and became an Indian Revenue Service officer in 2015.
He served as Assistant Commissioner in Hyderabad for a year and after taking the exam again, became a Indian Administrative Service officer in 2016.
His brother Surender Dahiya, a finance professional and resident of Bahadurgarh, remembers him as an over-achiever who wanted to serve the nation.
“His wife (Pragya Dixit) was also preparing for the IAS exam, scheduled next month. He was teaching her,” Mr. Surender said. Mr. Dahiya and Pragya got married two-and-a-half years ago.
Condolences pour in
Mr. Surender added that it was only two weeks ago that Mr. Dahiya had received a gold medal for his performance in training at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration in Mussoorie.
Narrating his field visit to Bihar’s Buxar, Mr. Dahiya had written on Facebook that it was an enlightening experience. “Participated in gram sabha meeting… organised sanitation awareness and Swachh Bharat rally today,” he wrote in a post dated November 9, 2016.
Mourning his loss, a school in Haryana’s Matindu, his birth place, which the young officer had visited on May 22 with his parents, shared a Facebook post saying that the IAS officer had praised the school for its value-based education.
Similarly, the alumni association of his engineering college, National Institute of Technology-Kurukshetra, wrote on Facebook: “He left us alone at a young age.”
Mr. Dahiya had received a distinguished alumni award by the association in December 2015.
