Ms. Zohra Chatterji (Retd. IAS)

Ms. Chatterji is a retired Secretary, Ministry of Textiles in the Government of India. She belongs to the 1979 batch of the IAS, UP Cadre and has held several important positions in her home state, including Secretary & Director Industries; Labor Commissioner; Secretary and Director General, Tourism; Secretary and Project Director, Basic Education; etc. Her last assignment in UP was Principal Secretary IT & Industries where she launched e-suvidha in Lucknow and project Lokvani for online redressal of public grievances for which she was awarded the Prime Minister’s Award for Excellence in Public Administration.

She has served as Member Secretary, National Commission of Women on promotion as Additional Secretary and was associated with drafting landmark amendments to the Criminal Law Amendment Bill and the Act for Prevention of Harassment of Women in the Workplace. She has also served as Additional Secretary Coal where she served as the first woman CMD Coal India. As Secretary to Government of India, Ministry of Textiles, she introduced new initiatives including a scheme for setting up of an Hastkala Academy in New Delhi for documentation, promotion, and preservation of handicrafts. She was chosen to represent India at the first session of UN Women and in deliberations at WIPO on the Broadcasting Treaty. Post retirement, she has served as Chairman of the UP Institute of Design which was her brainchild and is being set up at Lucknow with support of the UP Government.

She has been a member of News Broadcasting Standards Authority and presently in an Independent Director in several companies such as Infotech and UPICO. She is also President of Alliance Francaise, Lucknow and a member of the managing Committee of Avadh Girls Degree College, Lucknow. She is simultaneously pursuing her PhD from the University of Lucknow.