Date:01/11/2004 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2004/11/01/stories/2004110110260500.htm

Other States - Uttar Pradesh

First woman IAS officer now lives in a servant quarter

LUCKNOW, OCT 31 .E. B. Joshi, the first woman officer of the Indian Administrative Services (IAS), is spending the last days of her life in the dingy servant quarter of her already sold out ancestral house in the State capital.

Ms Joshi, now 96, became the first woman IAS official of the country after the Government allowed women candidates to appear in the premier civil services examination just after Independence.

She was posted as Magistrate and then as Assistant Commissioner in Delhi, followed by her appointment as Commissioner-cum-State Editor of District Gazetteer, a post she held till retirement in 1966.

Ms Joshi, after superannuation, continued to stay at her ancestral house in city's Kabir Marg area while her family members moved to the U.S. and Delhi. Despite the house being sold to a trader, Ms Joshi's deep attachment with her treasured past made her decide to stay in the servant quarter situated in the backyard.

UNI