Bureaucrat, Social Activist, Writer and Speaker, joined the Indian Administrative Service in 1964 and was allotted to Madhya Pradesh state where among the many vital posts she held, she was Secretary of Revenue; Relief Commissioner; and Secretary of the Food and Civil Supplies and Cooperative Department.
Assignments in the Social Welfare and Women Development Departments gave her the opportunity to introduce distribution of hot cooked food to children at the Anganwadi Centres under the ICDS programme and encourage women’s self-help groups to take on the task. During her tenures as Joint Secrteary and Secretary in the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, and then as Secretary, Women and Child Development, in Delhi, she spearheaded the preparation and finalization of the Juvenile Justice Act, formulated guidelines for adoption of children in the country and abroad, evolved the Drug Abuse Prevention Progamme with comprehensive inter-disciplinary schemes for Counselling, Care and Treatment, and After care of Drug addicts. Under her, the Childline Foundation was set up to provide care and protection for Street Children; and the National Policy for the Aged was formulated.