Tata Motor's ‘Atma Nirbhar Nari’ Initiative

International Women's Day, observed every year on March 8, is one of the most significant days of the year honouring women's accomplishments in all walks of life. With the country still celebrating gender parity, let’s sneak peek at Tata Motors’ mission of creating an ‘Atma Nirbhar Nari’. The rarest of sight in an automotive industry wherein we can count women workers on our fingers and Tata Motors with its woman in blue is breaking the stereotype.

Setting a benchmark in 2021, Tata Motors started an all-woman shop in automobiles, one of the country’s first such initiatives where a company employs 100 percent of women for the challenging job of manufacturing a car. The objective was the empowerment of women and today right from fitting a small nut to developing a final car, it's all about ‘Women at Work’ and taking charge of their own lives.

The Tata Motors diversity and inclusion journey is reflected at the TCF-2 passenger vehicle line at Pune, Pimpri. A plant assembling SUVs, the Harrier and Safari, by an all-woman team. A team of 1,500 from leadership positions to shop floor a responsible women workforce building world-class vehicles.

Tata Motors took on the mission of creating a women brigade but the journey was challenging, said Sitaram Kandi, Vice President-HR, Tata Motor. He stressed that the company still took the challenge and introduced robotics, raised workstations, redesigned tools and lifts to strive for the diverse mission of enrolling, educating and training girls, especially from economically deprived areas.

He said there are shops and factories in India with 40 to 50 per cent diversity but none with 100 percent and we did it.

He emphasised, “Tata does what nobody else”.

Commenting on the inspiration, for starting this great cause Kandi said, the philosophy comes from the great mentor ‘Ratan Tata’, with the senior leaders ‘cracking the impossible nut’, prioritising and creating infrastructure, including hygiene, residential options, secure workplace, transportation, cafeteria and medical facilities with woman attendants.

Today Tata Motors under its Kaushaliya – Learn and Earn Scheme program is training thousands of girls, ITI and 12th-pass young talents to do company-sponsored Diplomas and B. Tech. The other in association with the company is Nettur Technical Training Foundation (NTTF). This model not only helps Tata’s in-house employability but supports the development of a new woman force in the Indian automation sector, a woman ready to work on different lines, functions and multiple products ranging from small to large commercial vehicles.