Women get a fair deal in BWSSB recruitment

The list has been announced nearly two years after the examinations were conducted. The non-reservation of four per cent of posts for the physically challenged, demand of candidates from the Health Engineering stream to be considered for vacancies and objections to the provisional lists were a few reasons that delayed the announcement of the list.

However, for a few women the delay seems to be well worth the wait.

Final list

The final list figures two women in the post of Assistant Engineers. “Out of the four AEs announced two are women,” according to a top source. Similarly, five out of 15 Junior Civil Engineers are women, while five out of 16 junior electrical engineers are women.
However, no woman finds place among the seven junior mechanical engineers appointed.

The revised provisional list (the one published after taking into account the objections filed) has seven women as assistant civil engineers out of 37 and one among eleven mechanical engineers is a woman.

Male bastion

The engineering department in the BWSSB seems a male bastion. Out of the 350 engineers at various levels only four are women.

The only woman who held a top post in the engineering department was Leela Naik, who retired as the additional chief engineer, a post just below the rank of the chief engineer.
Also, nearly one-fourth of the meter readers happen to be women. Out of 34 meter readers, whose names figure in the provisional list, nine are women.

Of the existing 100-odd meter readers only a couple happen to be women. Moreover, the women have not given up on the traditional sectors. In the revised provisional list twenty out of thirty three typists listed are women.