Ashwini Bhide, 1995-batch Indian Administrative Service officer, has been predominantly known for her zealous work on Mumbai's first underground Metro, the 33.5-km Aqua Line 3, while spearheading the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation (MMRCL) as its managing director in two stints — since its inception in 2015 until 2020 and from July 2022 to date. She also headed the iconic Coastal Road project as additional municipal commissioner before returning as MD of the MMRCL.

Bhide continues to resolve issues on the Aqua Line 3, like last mile connectivity, lack of mobile signals underground and other challenges like service readiness, integration with buses and local transport. In January 2020, she and a few other IAS officers were transferred by the newly formed coalition government led by Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray. Though the transfer was tagged as routine, Bhide had been in a public spat with MLA Aaditya Thackeray over setting up a Metro car shed in Aarey Milk Colony.