IAS Akash Chhikara belongs to the 2017 batch of the Chhattisgarh cadre and is currently posted as the District Collector of Janjgir-Champa, Chhattisgarh.
 
Regarding his vision for the district, Chhikara is focused on the educational and health upliftment of the community through a comprehensive and holistic approach. "Education is the top priority because, as per last year’s passing percentage of board classes 10th and 12th, we ranked last in 10th and second last in 12th. To address this, we launched the Utkrisht Janjgir-Champa Abhiyan."
 
Chhikara has an ambitious vision of placing the district among the top 10 in the state. He stated, "We are taking several initiatives under this umbrella scheme." Some of these include: Attendance Monitoring for both students and teachers, Regular Weekly, Monthly, and Quarterly Tests, Interaction with the Collector for toppers of monthly tests, Bolega Bachpan promoting public speaking skills,Janjgir Ki Super Girls, enhancing opportunities for girls, Manosadhana Shivir, focusing on stress management, Udaan, offering visits to tourist spots for students.
 
Under this program, more than 38,000 caste certificates were distributed in schools, 1,325 children with special needswere identified, and 8,459 students appeared in mock exams.
 
On health, Chhikara emphasized a door-to-door survey to saturate six flagship government schemes "We conducted a mega survey of the entire population of the district. Since it was door-to-door, no one was missed out."He added, "We are among the few districts where leprosy incidents are very high. Before the initiative, we had 144 patients, but this jumped to 225 as 44% new leprosy cases were identified."
 
Additionally, 2,647 Divyangjan and more than 10,000 persons with vision-related problems were identified. Chhikara noted "In the last two months, we conducted roughly 480 cataract surgeries."
 
To strengthen governance, Chhikara launched SAMVAD, a 24x7 WhatsApp chatbot for grievance resolution, suggestions, and promoting citizen participation. He explained "Initially, it allowed direct communication with the administration for individual or community issues. Since our population is largely rural, we expanded it into a call center where complaints can also be registered."