BEST shuts its door on women electricians

BEST shuts its door on women electricians
Farida Shaikh

August 3: Still smarting from its experience with women conductors, the Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport undertaking (BEST) has decided to go a step further by barring female labour completely from certain areas of its electricity works.

So while engineering colleges have reserved seats for girls and the rest of the country debates the issue of reservations for women, the BEST has now floated tenders for electricity works which state that ``no female labour shall be employed by the contractor''. This has angered electrical contractors, most of whom have several women supervisors, electricians, apprentices and helpers as their employees.

Uday Chitre, general secretary of the Electrical Contractors' Association of Maharashtra (ECAM) says, ``This is absolutely discriminatory. There are more than 300 licensed wirewomen besides other female staff working with us for the last seven or eight years. On no occasion has anyone complained about their level of efficiency or capability. If that was the case, we would have never employed them in the first place. By introducing this clause, the BEST had completely shut the door on the faces of competent women who have obtained licences from government after passing stringent examinations.''

The BEST has justified its action saying the clause has been introduced in the tenders for ``obvious reasons''. In a reply filed on July 20 to the ECAM's complaint, the BEST has said the objections raised by the association ``are not legally sound since Article 15 (3) of the Constitution of India specially provides that, `nothing in this article shall prevent the State from making any special provision for women and children'. The reasons for inclusion of the above referred clause in our tenders is fully covered by Article 15 of the Constitution of India. Besides, in depot and workshop premises of the Undertaking, civil work is required to be carried out at extraordinary heights and in such circumstances, it is not advisable to employ female labour for obvious reasons.''

According to Chitre, the responsibility of getting electrical work done safely, efficiently and on time completely rests with contractors. ``The BEST comes nowhere in the picture once it hands over the work to us. As far as work on heights is concerned, the work is given to a very senior electrician who is accompanied by the contractor himself. The BEST should go and have a look at the YWCA building at Colaba which has been completely wired by our girls.''

Chitre has conducted coures for YWCA and in far-flung villages to get more girls professionally qualified as electricians. ``Those not qualified to get admissions in Government ITIs approach us for a one-year apprenticeship after which they can appear for the wiremen's examination. After a two-year stint as wiremen with us, they can appear for the PWD electrical supervisor examination. Both these examinations are very tough but women have cleared them. In fact, a large number of residential consumers prefer them because they feel safe with women working inside their houses.''