Women storming male bastion in auto mfg harder

New Delhi: Women are storming the male bastion in automotive manufacturing harder as firms like Tata Motors, MG Motor, Hero MotoCorp and Bajaj Auto accelerate the drive for gender diversity at shop floors. Tata Motors, which currently has over 3,000 women operating on its shop floors across its six plants in India in different roles for production of a range of vehicles from small passenger cars to heavy commercial vehicles, plans to add even more women in its factory workforce.

Similarly, MG Motor India plans to achieve a gender-balanced workforce wherein women would account for 50 per cent of its overall workforce, including in factories, by December 2023. Currently, women comprise 34 per cent of the company's factory workforce of 2,000 at Halol plant, in Gujarat. Hero MotoCorp has over 1,500 women employees with a diversity ratio of 9.3 per cent at the end of 2021-22 and it aims to substantially increase it in the near future. Another Indian automotive firm, Bajaj Auto which has an all-women line of manufacturing high-end bikes like Dominar 400 and Pulsar RS 200 at its Chakan plant, in Pune has seen women employee strength grow more than four times from 148 in FY14 to 667 in FY22. Almost 64 per cent of women are working in manufacturing plants and in engineering, according to the company's annual report for 2021-22.

"Diversity and inclusion in the automotive and manufacturing sector in India has become increasingly important over the past few years, with more firms wanting to build an equitable workplace. "While companies have put in place a comprehensive framework to encourage women to hold key positions, the figures show that there is a wide gap between the idealised criteria and reality," Tata Motors President & Chief Human Resources Officer, Ravindra Kumar told PTI. With an eye on reducing the gap, Tata Motors is taking steps in its own ways.

The company's Pune passenger vehicles plant has seen a nearly 10 times increase over the past two years of its women workforce, with an increase from 178 workers in April 2020 to 1,600 as of now, he said. "We have also undertaken the challenging task of building a shop in Pune that entirely comprises a women workforce, and as of now 1,100 women are employed in this shop. We plan to increase this further to 1,500 in the next two months," Kumar added.

At MG Motor India, women are deployed in critical manufacturing areas, paint quality and surface testing, research and development (R&D), assembly and played a key role in the rollout of the company's first model in India, SUV Hector from its Halol plant in Gujarat.