Homegrown automakers Tata Motors, Mahindra & Mahindra, Ashok Leyland and Hero MotoCorp are accelerating the drive to employ more women in shop floors as they press hard on the pedal to enhance diversity.

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Once outsiders but no longer, thousands of women are now rolling out from two-wheelers to popular SUVs and heavy commercial vehicles across different factories of these companies.

Tata Motors has over 4,500 women working in the shop floors across six manufacturing plants, including an all-women line at its Pune facility with over 1,500 of them producing popular SUVs such as Harrier and Safari.

"We are an equal opportunity employer and believe a gender-balanced workforce leads to increased productivity, better decisions, enhanced collaboration, and more innovative ideas. Our focus is on enhancing diversity, especially on the shop floor and 25 per cent of all our new recruits are women," Tata Motors Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) Ravindra Kumar GP told PTI.

He further said, "Today, over 4,500 women are actively engaged on the shop floors of our various plants. They exercise a wide range of functional capabilities on multiple products, from small passenger cars to heavy commercial vehicles."

Another homegrown automaker Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) has seen the number of women as its employees at manufacturing plants grow by three times over last year to 1,202 at present, involved in core activities ranging from welding to robotics loading, vehicle assembly and machine shop, among others.

According to M&M CHRO, Auto & Farm Sector Rajeshwar Tripathi, the company hires from over 25 Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs), some of which are women-only ITIs.

"Our annual intake is in the excess of 1,200. We have adopted about eight ITIs in tribal areas, from where our intake is very regular," he said, adding, M&M too strongly believes that a diverse team is far more productive, the work culture is far better and such teams are more creative and more innovative.

When asked about the challenges in more women entering into automobile manufacturing, he said it is as much internal within the company as it is social.

Although the company has worked to put in place the basics such as policies and physical infrastructure, the external factor of social and family pressure can be a hindrance in getting more women to work in the shop floors.

The social and family pressure on women not to take up manufacturing as a career is quite significant and it can play a significant role if not addressed adequately, Tripathi asserted.

At commercial vehicle maker Ashok Leyland, 991 women work at its seven different manufacturing plants. At the company's Hosur plant, an all-women assembly line comprising nearly 120 of them is engaged in the assembly of engines for light commercial vehicles producing 120 engines per shift in a day.

Ashok Leyland President & Chief of Operations Ganesh Mani said the company has always been propagating that any job need not be gender specific.

Citing the example of the company's Pantnagar plant, where women executives who take part in truck assembly, could take leadership positions much earlier after working for nearly one to two years, he said it inspired the company to contemplate an all-women engine assembly line.

"If they (women) can make trucks why not we go for (an all-women) engine assembly line," Mani said, adding, "Our new tagline is 'Koi manzil door nahin', which means no dreams too far for anyone. Keeping that in view we thought that we should be a starting point that an all-women line should be that." Women empowerment is also witnessed at the world's largest two-wheeler maker Hero MotoCorp, which has over 1,500 women employees.

The concept of women technicians and engineers in the automobile industry which seemed like a distant dream is now a reality. Women are now not only finding their feet in the shop floors but they are running the show at the factories, thanks to these Indian automobile manufacturers.

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