Sarita Gaikwad, a 28-year-old housewife, and resident of Kurla said, "The training has boosted our confidence and made us realise our potential to earn money for our family. I will happily work as a forklift driver."
To promote gender diversity in the forklift operation segment, Godrej Material Handling has ventured into an area which traditionally has been reserved for male operators. Recently they started training women to become forklift drivers, given the rise in demand for Material Handling Equipment operators. "Majority of the women are housewives," says training head FN Bharucha. "Few of them are pursuing other careers such as private taxi driving or freelancing in salons, but they get paid less than 10,000 per month." As forklift operators on the other hand, they can make up to Rs 15,000 a month.
The two-week training that started in December, focuses mainly on practical training. "In the first batch," says Bharucha, "which passed out recently, we trained six women, while the ongoing second batch consist of 11 women. We are happy to see the increasing number of women coming forward to take up this opportunity. We are working with two NGOs to pique the interest of more women in learning forklift driving techniques."
The skill opens up employment opportunities as pickers and packers in housekeeping,which are the traditional roles in warehouse, industries, and logistic sectors. A four wheeler license is a pre-requisite for this training and the women are happily obtaining the same with the assistance of NGOs.
Sarita Gaikwad, a 28-year-old housewife, and resident of Kurla said, "The training has boosted our confidence and made us realise our potential to earn money for our family. I will happily work as a forklift driver."
Twenty-five-year-old Swati Waghmare, who was also in the first batch and lives in Chembur, said, "I was scared to drive a four wheeler but the forklift is much easier to drive. Our first lesson was about safety measures, learning which are crucial for us to perform smoothly."
"Besides the driving license," Bharucha added, "the women require to have studied till eighth standard atleast, to know how to read a basic check list and product list. We are also trying to get the women employed in different organisations."
Pradeep Parab, Trainer, said, "The participants are trained in a mock-up warehouse. They learn to maneuvre the machine, and stack and de-stack pallet loads onto racks. There was no need to design the training programme differently."
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