Women at the heart of change

Raising a toast to all-women enterprises

- VAISHALI DAR

Gone are the days when women operating flights or trains, delivering food orders and supplies were celebrated as achievements across sectors. Today, women's participation has grown manifold in all areas, and in some cases, it's an all-women team at play.

Tata Steel started an all-women shift at its Noamundi iron mine in Jharkhand last year as part of the company's move to create an equitable workplace and empower women in traditionally male-dominated industries. This shift comprises women employees for all the mining activities of the shift, including heavy earth moving machinery, shovel, loader, drill, dozer operators and shift supervision.

The fact that Tata Harrier and Tata Safari SUVs are built by women is not just an industry-first initiative but over 1,700 women hailing from some of the remotest corners of Maharashtra are credited with building your favourite cars from scratch. This activity has been ongoing for more than three years at the Tata Motors passenger vehicles (PV) plant in Pimpri-Chinchwad, Pune, where the number of PVs produced annually has gone up from 1.5 lakh in 2020 to over 5 lakh in 2022.