[13] Hemant is the founder of many NGO's including Burning Brain Society,[13] Tobacco Free India Coalition and Citizens' Voice which were till recently managed by him from Chandigarh.

[14] Hemant has also been closely associated with Servants of the People Society too and till 2013 also worked as the Chief Executive officer (CEO) of The Samaja, one of the largest-selling Oriya daily newspaper founded by Gopabandhu Das in 1919.

He holds multiple post-graduation qualifications in diverse streams, including; Business Management, Journalism and Mass Communication, Health Sociology, Intellectual Property Laws, Information Technology and Industrial Psychology.

[22] He strongly believes that problems and anomalies in these areas of governance is the main reason for the abuse of civil rights of the people.

[25] A documentary film entitled Change Catalyst was released in 2011 to document the work done by Hemant Goswami in creating Chandigarh as India's first smoke-free city.

[26] Hemant Goswami is known for being an independent voice in challenging corruption[27] and ensuring accountability[28][29] in public service[30] and governance at the highest echelons.

[45] The innovative strategies used by Hemant and the success story of 'Smoke-Free Chandigarh' has also been used by WHO to develop an international best practice guidebook on making cities smokefree.

[46] Hemant was also the lead author and investigator of the WHO and Ministry of Health (India) research study on 'Tobacco in Movies and its Impact on Youngsters.

'[47] This study by Hemant Goswami is used by the Government of India to justify the 2005 enacted delegated legislation prohibiting the use of tobacco in movies.

[55][56] Hemant also sat on a sit-in hunger protest outside the White House, USA in May 2007 against non-ratification of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) by the US government.

After deliberations for five years, in 2017, the legal group of the expert committee recommended that "it is necessary and expedient in public interest to completely, without any exception, prohibit the import, manufacturing, distribution and sale of Nicotine as an extract and/or chemical, and Electronic Nicotine Delivery Devices.." The Union government finally enacted a legislation Prohibition of Electronic Cigarettes (Production, Manufacture, Import, Export, Transport, Sale, Distribution, Storage and Advertisement) Act in December 2019.

Besides taking tough stands against any proposed amendment to the RTI Act, Goswami has boldly taken senior bureaucrats and Governors to task too for lack of transparency and accountability in their offices.

[65] Another remarkable initiative of Hemant Goswami, as a part of "Mission Zero Tolerance" against corruption, resulted in a consolidated order by the CIC (deciding 52 complaints by "Society for Prevention of Crime and Corruption" in one single order), wherein all Central Government and Chandigarh Administration offices were directed to ensure proper implementation of the Right to Information Act 2005 and thereby for the first time directions were issued to the Government to proactively publish all the public documents online on the internet.

[77] On 9 April 2013, the Punjab and Haryana High Court gave landmark order on the writ-petition (PIL CWP 2693 of 2010) moved by Hemant Goswami.

[80] The issue was further escalated by Hemant taking the matter to public domain wherein he raised questions about neutrality of the High Court in the whole episode.

In October 2012 Hemant filed a writ petition in the Punjab and Haryana High Court for declaring Sanskrit as a 'Minority' language, so that it could enjoy special protection as available to minorities under the Constitution of India.

[84][85] Hemant is also associated with work on Genetically Modified Food and Agriculture reforms and is closely connected with Kheti Virasat Mission.

He is also actively engaged in fight against unjustified subsidy and concession to big fertilizer and pesticide companies at the cost of poor farmers.