While serving Rajasthan University as a professor, Mehrotra was known to have contributed in organizing a research school there and successfully tried to obtain Special Assistance Program as well as University Leadership Program from UGC. The research school has since published several original research papers in international journals. Similarly, he established research schools on inorganic and organometallic chemistry at the universities of Allahabad, Lucknow, and Delhi. During 1971–72, as a UGC National Professor, he delivered lectures at many Indian universities and he was a pioneer in popularizing science through Hindi medium for which he was awarded a cash prize by the Government of India in 1985. Besides over 800 articles published in peer-reviewed international journals, he authored five books viz. Metal alkoxides, Metal [beta] [beta]-diketonates and Allied Derivatives, Metal Carboxylates, Alkoxo and Aryloxo Derivatives of Metals and Organometallic Chemistry. He has also prepared texts for Indira Gandhi National Open University as a member of the Block Preparation Team.