DURGABHAI DESHMUKH

Durgabai Deshmukh Date of Birth : 1909 Date of Death : 1981 Place of Birth : Kakinada

She was the mother of social work in India. She was born in a middles class Andhra family in Kakinada. In 1937 she founded Andhra Mahila Sabha in Madras which today runs two hospitals, 2 colleges and 3 high schools. As Member of Parliament she worked to set up a social welfare board on 13-8-1953 to carry out programmes of educating, training and rehabilitating the needy women, children and the disabled. She was the recipient of a number of awards including Padma Bhushan and the UNESCO award for outstanding work in the field of literacy.