New Delhi: Before emails, PDFs and instant messages, government appointment letters often arrived by telegram. A gentle peep into such a past came through a rare post, laced with nostalgia and pride, by Indian Audit & Accounts Service (IAAS) officer Reema Prakash who celebrated her retirement by sharing the telegram she received on December 30, 1991 in a sweet LinkedIn post.
For bureaucrats growing up in the new milieu, this post surely is a fascinating glimpse as to how far have we travelled over the last three decades, both in substance and style.
In a LinkedIn post, Prakash described joining the IAAS as “one of the best things that happened” to her. The service took her across India and the world, with postings in Gwalior, Patna, Delhi, Lucknow, Bhubaneswar, Addis Ababa, New York and Entebbe, besides giving her opportunities to travel extensively as an auditor.
Her career unfolded alongside India’s own technological and economic evolution. During her probation, she saw a computer for the first time and witnessed the arrival of the internet. She later trained in Information Technology (IT) audit at the National Audit Office in London in 1997 and, years later, underwent training on the use of artificial intelligence at IIT Delhi.
As an auditor, Prakash also had a ringside view of some of India’s most significant economic reforms. She witnessed the liberalisation of the petroleum sector in the late 1990s and the opening up of the telecom sector in the early 2000s, observing how policy decisions reshaped the country’s economy.
Reflecting on her journey, she wrote, “From the sidelines as an Auditor, I have been a close witness to how our country has been progressing, small step at a time. And as an Auditor, how we have aided in the process of nation building and continue doing so.”
According to her LinkedIn profile, Prakash went on to hold several senior leadership positions, including Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Food Processing Industries, Director General and Deputy Comptroller and Auditor General in the Comptroller & Auditor General (CAG) of India. She was appointed Member of the Airports Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA) in July 2026.
An economics graduate from Patna University, she also holds an MBA in Accounting and Finance from Swinburne University of Technology and has specialised in information systems audit.
Concluding her note, Prakash said that after 33 years and eight months in public service, she retires with immense pride in her identity as an auditor.
BI Bureau
