In two small rooms, a 'revolution' is underway. This annexe to a fairly large gated property is the mill control assembly unit, a Kudumbashree entity run by nine women. Teams of three and six occupy each of these rooms. They sit at their busy work stations heavy with cold tools, assembly parts and calibration charts. This is the Phoenix Activity Group, which assembles control and trip valves.
We remove our shoes at the entrance of the three-person operation. There is a lot happening for a space as small as this. While Girija Shashindran, the unit’s president talks to us, Mini is hammering away at the skeleton of a control valve, attacking it with nuts and screws. On the other workshop table, Ajida calibrates a finished piece. Each of these tables is lined with over 50 red plastic trays organised in neat rows with all sorts of parts. A week of training and daily practice explains all the activity in this room. The women here work and talk like experts. But they aren’t sure how and where their output is used, they were not told this during the training. Girija hands us a brochure with a picture of the valve in its final form attached to bigger machinery. “They probably haven’t told us because they fear that we’ll set up our own unit,” the women joke.
The work demands attention to detail, dexterity, precision. On average, the three member unit assembles 10 control valves in a day between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. They earn Rs. 150 a piece and a minimum of 50 must be assembled in a month – which they can easily do.







