Kochi: It was all fire and fury in the city when NSK Umesh landed in Ernakulam as the district collector in March 2023. Brahmapuram was burning and the public was running out of patience with the fire breakout at the municipal dumping yard escalating the city’s waste management crisis. Surely, not the best of times for a bureaucrat to take charge of the district. Umesh entered the scene not as an administrator but as a firefighter leading from the front. In the days to come, he managed well not just to coordinate the fire-dousing efforts but also to put in place a set of measures to resolve the city’s waste woes, as the state government and the Kochi corporation were desperate to set a model out of the Brahmapuram fiasco. Two years after the episode, as Umesh is leaving the collector’s office for the bigger role of director of general education, the district is set to miss one of its favourite officers who always lent an ear to others.

“At Brahmapuram, we had three tasks at hand. First, immediately douse the fire; second, make the facility fireproof; third, complete the biomining to clear the area of legacy waste heaped over the years. The first 10 days were very hectic as we couldn’t even sleep properly. We could douse the fire in a coordinated effort involving corporation and other agencies and ensure the area is fireproof by installing facilities and infrastructure to ensure such incidents don’t repeat. Also, along with carrying out biomining works, we set up a black soldier fly biodegradable waste plant. BPCL’s compressed biogas plant is all coming up. In all these, I could coordinate the works standing besides the corporation and ensure timely-follow-up,” Umesh told Onmanorama.

Brahmapuram was not the only crisis the 2014-batch IAS officer had to deal with in Kochi. The critical situations he had to manage include the Kalamassery bomb blast and the Cusat stampede. Crisis management has always been Umesh’s forte and he proved it first with the relief operations during the 2018 floods when he was Wayanad sub collector.

His crisis management skills helped him in coordinating the Operation Breakthrough, aimed at mitigating urban flooding in Kochi while his people management skills proved crucial in easing land acquisition for major projects including Kochi Metro phase 2, overbridges and roads. Sources aware of his work as an administrator said that he had a knack for interpreting rules in favour of the people who approach the district administration.

Umesh’s works in the district earned him the ‘Best Collector’ award from the state revenue survey department in 2024. He was also chosen for the National Human Rights and Humanitarian Federation (NHRF) award in 2025, and the ‘Best Election Officer’ award for his conduct of the 2024 Lok Sabha election. He will be replaced by Palakkad collector G Priyanka who will take charge on Wednesday.

Umesh has been appointed director of general education with additional charge as managing director of the Kerala Financial Corporation (KFC).