Baikunth Cement Works helps rural women become financially independent through placement-guaranteed vocational training

December 6th, 2023 : Baikunth Cement Works, UltraTech’s integrated cement manufacturing unit, located near Raipur in Chhattisgarh helped over 95 socio-economically marginalised young women to be economically independent through vocational training and placement.

The women were earlier working as daily wage labour locally to support their families. Taking cognizance of the situation, Baikunth Cement Works partnered with one of India’s largest apparel manufacturers and exporters of readymade garments, Shahi Exports in August 2022 to train the women in industrial sewing machine operations so as enable them secure sustainable livelihoods. As part of the collaboration, Shahi Exports gave a guarantee of employment to the trained women in Shahi’s manufacturing units.

In this direction, our unit team and Shahi Exports set up a training centre in our unit premises. Through mobilisation of the community in 20 villages located in the proximity of the unit, over 120 women were selected for training. Training commenced in November 2022. So far 95 of these women have completed training and all of them were offered job offers by Shahi Exports in their manufacturing units in Bengaluru and Hyderabad.

However, there was resistance from the families to allow the women to take up jobs as it entailed relocation from the village. Thanks to the efforts of our CSR team in engaging with the families, 40 of these women have been able to take up job offers in Shahi Exports’ manufacturing units in Bengaluru and Hyderabad. Thirty women, who could not relocate due to family and other personal constraints have taken up self-employment by providing tailoring services in their villages. The unit proposes to engage with the remaining women who couldn’t take up the job offers nor have taken up self-employment, to explore them to take up livelihood opportunities basis their individual circumstances going forward.