Tukaram Mundhe: The IAS officer shaking up Maharashtra's FDA
Tukaram Mundhe, Commissioner of Maharashtra’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA), has become a familiar name in the State for his relentless crackdown on food and drug adulteration. Over the past few months, his office has raided, shut down, and issued show-cause notices to several establishments—many of them iconic names that have operated for generations. Seizures and police complaints have followed, drawing both praise and criticism.
The Bombay High Court recently advised him against “using a sword to kill a mosquito,” suggesting a more measured approach. Yet Mr. Mundhe maintains he will not relent until safe food and drugs are ensured for every citizen of Maharashtra.
Mr. Mundhe’s journey to this position is rooted in struggle. Born into a poor agricultural family in Beed, in the drought-prone Marathwada region, he grew up witnessing the consequences of failed welfare delivery. Agricultural distress and debt were constant companions. He worked on the family’s subsistence farm, sold vegetables at weekly markets, and woke up at 2 a.m. to water crops by hand. He walked barefoot to the local Zilla Parishad school and lived in a mud-brick house dependent on the monsoon.
These experiences, he says, drove him to join the civil services—not to belong to the system, but to change it. Without coaching, networks, or family precedent in public service, he cleared the UPSC examination in 2005, securing the 20th rank nationally. He was allotted his home cadre of Maharashtra.
Academically, Mr. Mundhe completed his bachelor’s degree from Government College of Arts and Science in Aurangabad (now Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar) in 1996, followed by an MA in Political Science from Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University in 1998. Even after joining the IAS, he pursued courses in leadership, financial market regulation, tax analysis, fiscal policy, macroeconomic management, and disaster management—sharpening his focus on governance and financial administration.
Over two decades of service, Mr. Mundhe has earned several recognitions. He received the Maharashtra government’s Best Collector Award for all-round excellence in district governance in 2015-16 and the National Award for Social Justice and Empowerment from the Union Ministry. His work in water conservation earned him the informal title of “waterman of Maharashtra.” As Municipal Commissioner of Navi Mumbai, the corporation received the SKOCH Order of Merit for e-toilets and seismic retrofitting initiatives. In 2017, he won a National Award for the Best Integrated Traffic Management System.
His approach, however, has made him unpopular within parts of the administrative system. In 21 years of service, Mr. Mundhe has been transferred 25 times and has never completed a full three-year tenure in any posting. At times, he has been kept without a posting. Despite this, he continues to act on his stated principles.
Early in his career, Mr. Mundhe developed a three-point framework that he says guides every decision: every action must be legal, morally correct, and in the public interest. “If any two conditions are met—including legality—I act. There is no hesitation, no gradual approach, no negotiation with what is wrong simply because it is powerful,” he says. During his first field posting, he took on the sand mafia and received death threats—an early sign of the tenacity he now brings to the FDA.
As he leads the latest drive against adulteration, Mr. Mundhe remains a polarising figure. To some, he is a crusader for public health; to others, an overzealous bureaucrat. But his background and record offer context to his uncompromising stance.
