It is an all-women show at this plant in Coimbatore

Don’t be surprised if you see a group of women walking out of Kirloskar Brothers Limited (KBL) pump manufacturing company in Coimbatore. From its entrance gate to shop floor, as many as 210 women are running the show at India’’s one of its kind all-women manufacturing plant.
 
From testing the quality of materials to assembling the domestic water pumps these women are efficiently handling all the operational functions here. These women aren’t engineers. Their minimum qualification ranges from Std VIII to XII, but their experience has given them the technical knowledge. They produce around 9 lakh pumps each year. In 2014, these women had also achieved a Limca record by assembling the pumps with 17.25 secs.

The plant is now planning to produce one lakh pumps each month from May. It currently produces 76,000 pumps.

“There have been instances when these women haven’t realised that the chief executive officer (CEO) or managing director (MD) or any authority of KBL is standing behind them, when they are working. That is the level of engrossment in work among them,” said A Antonie Baskar. This was true even when the media personnel visited the shop floor. None of them even glanced at those who were present there.

The shop floor was vibrant with sounds of machines functioning and women uniformed in blue kurta and dark blue jacket, few had ‘gajra’ tied in their hair, checking the quality of the materials arrived, while at another end, some were busy assembling the pumps. There are hardly 10 men seen on the shop floor who assist these women in packing and deliver the pumps.

Happy hours!
For Saraswati (37), who works in the quality department, the factory is her second home. Since she has joined the plant seven years ago, Saraswati has taken her longest leave of 26 days when her husband expired last year. ‘Everyone here, all my colleagues make it like home for me. So I don’t like to miss even one day here, she said.

Similar sentiments were echoed by most of the women over there who in their personal lives have been dealing with turmoils. “It is very simple. We don’t take any baggages from work to home and vice versa,” said Sudha Rani (37). She was one of the first 35 employees when KBL started in 2010.

“We have always helped and shared our problems with each other. There is no judgement or hesitation among us. We can speak about our menstrual problems as well with our supervisors easily. Especially on the days when we are down with periods, women take care of each other and don’t allow to take heavy weights,” added Rani.

Another factor which encourages the women to work is the safety measures taken by factory. The factory also runs a daycare so that women can bring their children to factory and work freely without worrying their safety.

Hurdle struck…
From 2017, the plant had started two shifts-- 8 am to 3 pm and 4 pm to 11 pm for women to meet the targets as per demands. Even though there are free transport for women to and fro office for both shifts, it wasn’’t an easy implementation. The factory had lost four-five women whose families objected to work late till night.

““Initially, many women had taken aback when we told about the new shift. But our human resource (HR) team met the families of these women and assured their safety. Somehow, we convinced most of the families but there were few who left. Our HR team makes a quarterly visit to all employees’ family members to strengthen the association and provide counselling. This helps the women to work without much restriction,”” stated Lakshmi U, General Manager-plant head.

In 2018, KBL got the inter-state migrant licence which enabled women from Kerala to join the factory. Lakshmi said that at least 10 per cent of the women working in the factory are now from Kerala. They travel three hours to reach office and back home. Second shift is not imposed on them. 

Apart from this, the HR team also organises health camps to create awareness about sexual harassment, cancer, conduct pap smears etc.

Hidden stories 
V Kalaiselvi (32), a single mother of three children finds strength to keep doing her best from her terrifying past. Kalaiselvi was married at the age of 17 years. After eight years, her husband abandoned her to marry another women. Later, he died. Since then, Kalaiselvi had knocked on all possible doors for help but all in vain. Her parents, in-laws, relatives everybody had refused to support her. Failing to get help, Kalaiselvi started to work in factories and earn for her family on her school teacher’s advice .

“I want to raise my children properly and make them strong to fight with the world. When I needed my family, I had no one. My aim is to live the best of my life and show them that I can survive without them. I manage to provide my children education from government school and want them to pursue higher education,” said Kalaiselvi.

Such are stories of many women working there who are either single parents, widows or abandoned wives.What keeps them strong and empowered is the work they do at the factory.

”Today, there is nothing that only men can do. At least never felt like that. This is an all-women factory and everything is handled by us. We may not be engineers, but we can tell accurate technical details of the pumps we make here,” said Saraswati with a smile.