Minhas worked as a Consultant to the World Bank at Washington D.C. and the Statistics and Survey Division of the Food and Agricultural Organization (Rome). In 1976–78, he worked as a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) at the University of Sussex in the UK and, a little later, he held appointments as Visiting Professor at Johns Hopkins University and as Rufus Putnam Visiting Professor at Ohio. From 1981 to 1984, he served as Secretary General of the Afro-Asian Rural Reconstruction Organization and also Chairman of the National Sample Survey (NSS) Organization (1980–90).
