village, Himachal Pradesh Metre was born on 25 June 1950 to geologist
Wamanrao Bapuji Metre and Shantabai Metre at
Nagpur in the western Indian state of
Maharashtra but spent her early years in
Assam. Moving to Delhi, she did her schooling at
The Frank Anthony Public School before graduating in medicine (MBBS) from
Maulana Azad Medical College and secured her post graduate degree (MD) in pediatrics from the same institution. Later, she did her senior residency at Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital, Delhi and set up her practice in the city. In 1985, leaving behind her life in
New Delhi, she went to
Sidhbari, a village in
Himachal Pradesh, and set up six health centres for women and children and a community health training centre for nurses. The movement gathered momentum in due course and evolved into
Chinmaya Organisation of Rural Development (CORD), with Metre becoming the founding National Director of the organization. Under her leadership, CORD operates in over 900 villages and has formed
self-help groups (
Mahila Mandals) and introduced
microfinancing facilities through the groups. The organization has had a strong focus on
Kangra district of
Himachal Pradesh, where it started, along with some presence in the neighboring districts. To leverage its long term in-depth experience in its core area of operation, starting 2005, it expanded its activities with satellite units in the states of
Odisha,
Tamil Nadu,
Andhra Pradesh,
Punjab and
Uttarakhand. She has also focused on social issues like HIV/AIDS,
substance abuse and discriminative treatment of women legal aid programs, and livelihood support programs. Her group of volunteers have trained over 40,000 people in the management of rural development, representing government and banking institutions,
non government organizations and
self-help group (SHG) members. In 2015, with the increasing demand for such training, a new facility for CORD Training Center was opened in Sidhbari. == Awards and honours ==