Indian Writing

Last year, the Uttaranchal Power Corporation signed up 400 rural women to handle the billing of electricity meters. Revenues have increased, and the company CMD is a happy man: “I am absolutely delighted. We had not planned to engage women in repair and maintenance. But they are so good that nobody can stop them from spreading their wings.”

The idea of employing rural women flashed during a “frustrating and tiring” trip to Uttarkashi a year ago, he said. “We had gone to inaugurate a 33 KV substation. The gram panchayat head kept grumbling — ‘we never got our electricity bills, the line faults are never repaired and the local electrician is forever drunk.’”

Just then, the electrician sauntered in, Verma recounted, and true to complaints, he was totally sloshed in the afternoon.

“That is the problem with men. They are addicted to alcohol, never respond to complaints. We were not getting any payments, the bills were not being delivered… In short, both the department and the consumers were unhappy.” Hassled and at his wit’s end, Verma toyed with possible solutions on his way back.

That was when the idea struck. The first woman who signed up was a widow, Razia Begum, who was trained to read meters and distribute bills at Rs 6 per connection. When she made Rs 2,000 in two months — enough to feed her family — word spread and the women came flocking.

“Learning to read meters was not a problem. I could do it very efficiently in just three days,” said Pushpa Chauhan, a meter reader from Uttarkashi.