Who Is Saloni Sidana? The Inspiring Doctor Turned IAS Officer Whose Frugal Wedding Story Went Viral

Saloni Sidana passed the UPSC exam on her first attempt in 2013, earning the 74th rank and being assigned to the Andhra cadre.

Image Cedits: Twitter/@nwp_mitwpu

The UPSC Civil Services Exam is one of the most demanding exams in India. Every year, lakhs of UPSC applicants take the exam in the hope of passing and becoming IAS officers. However, just a few of them pass the UPSC exam and become IAS officers. In this post, we shall discuss Saloni Sidana, a 2014 batch IAS officer whose inspection videos and images have gone viral recently. Saloni Sidana is the DM of Madhya Pradesh's Mandla district. Saloni conducted an examination of the district's schools on Wednesday. She also double-checked the students' midday lunch.

A video of her feeding food from her plate to a government school's cook, Teeja Bai, went viral on social media. Netizens laud her for her simplicity. She ate the mid-day meal and fed Teeja Bai with her own hands during the inspection. Her photo of herself feeding Teeja Bai has now gone viral on social media. 

She studied medicine before preparing for the UPSC. Saloni earned her MBBS in Delhi and worked as a radiologist at AIIMS before deciding to enter the civil service. She passed the UPSC test on her first attempt in 2013, earning the 74th rank and being assigned to the Andhra cadre.

IAS Saloni Sidana spent Rs 500 on her wedding

Saloni Sidana is an IAS officer of the MP cadre from the 2014 batch. She had previously served in the cadre of Andhra Pradesh. Later, she married Ashish Vashishta, an IAS official of the Madhya Pradesh cadre, for Rs 500 in the office of the Bhind additional district magistrate. The pair arrived at work two days later. Sidana set a good example by distributing sweets at the collectorate office.
Saloni is the daughter of an agriculturist from Punjab's Jalalabad area. While studying at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration in Mussoorie, she fell in love with Ashish from the same class.