The Mobile Creches for Working Mothers' Children is a voluntary programme which began in 1969 with a simple creche started by the late Meera Mahadevan. Ms Mahadevan, a writer and housewife who was appointed to a Women and Children's sub-committee in connection with the celebration for the Gandhi Centenary Year, was moved by the plight of construction workers' children who lay on rags in the dust and heat while their parents toiled on work sites.