Professor Nirmala Banerjee, mother of Nobel Laureate economist Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee and an accomplished economist-cum-author in her own right, passed away at a hospital in Calcutta on Friday. She was 87.

Banerjee was admitted to the RN Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences on Wednesday after she fell in the bathroom of her Ballygunge apartment and suffered a grievous head injury the previous night. She remained on invasive ventilation support since her condition remained critical from the time she was admitted in hospital. She never regained consciousness since her admission, it was learnt from hospital sources. Earlier, on October 26, she was admitted to the same hospital with respiratory distress and was treated and discharged three days later, hospital sources confirmed.

Born Nirmala Patankar in Maharashtra, Banerjee studied at the London School of Economics and taught at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences in Calcutta. She authored several books on her area of specialization of economics and gender studies including ‘Gender Impacts of Revenue Collection in India’ (published 2008), ‘Women Workers in the Unorganized Sector: Calcutta Experience’ (published 1985) and Gender in Fiscal Policies: The Case of West Bengal (published: 2004). She was married to, economist Dipak Banerjee, also an alumnus of LSE and a professor at Presidency College who passed away in 2007.

Banerjee’s death was announced shortly after her son Abhijit, who rushed to the city from the US where he teaches at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, reached the hospital on Friday afternoon.

Expressing profound grief at the economist’s demise, Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, who was personally acquainted with the Nobel Laureate's mother as she is with Abhijit, posted on her X timeline: “I came to know Nirmaladi well and have many sweet memories now. Her demise is a great loss in our public life.”

“My deep condolences to Abhijit, Aniruddha, other family members including Esther Duflo, as well as Nirmaladi's friends and students,” the chief minister added.

Earlier on Thursday, the chief minister visited the economist at the hospital to enquire about her health condition and emerged troubled after learning about the patient’s clinical status. “Let’s pray for her,” she had posted.

Banerjee, accompanied by ministers Aroop Biswas and Indranil Sen and her chief advisor Alapan Bandyopadhyay, visited the residence of the late economist on Friday where the body was kept in state and paid her final respects.