Atasi Das - GR Infraprojects Limited
Atasi Das, Assistant Vice President, GR Infraprojects Limited
A supportive mentor circle can make professional development in the career front easy.
After completing my post-graduate studies in the US, I went on to have a successful career in the country, where my child was born as well. I resumed my duties at the private consultancy in the US within 6 weeks leaving my child under the care of grandparents for a year. In the second year, with progressive health problems of my child even in the best day-care around, I chose to move to the liberal and understanding public sector with a pay-cut, but soon moved up the ranks to the promising managerial position.Yet, repeated hospitalizations of our child forced us, as parents, to move to India, a move that ensured a sound health and a good educational foundation for our child in India. Having experienced both the private and public sectors in the US, the initial expectation in India was a conducive working environment in the private sector; an expectation that was met after 2 years and after changing 4 jobs. Quite surprisingly, the resistance in the previous jobs in India came from the female counterparts. Fortunate to having a supportive mentor circle in all the previous jobs, professional development in the career front was easy for me.
However, thirsty for challenges and innovative engineering applications, I was soon bored with the consultancy sector and decided to shift to the field of construction for a brief stint. However, it proved to be a major game changer in my career, as I got to establish myself as one of the forerunners in the male dominated field of Pavement Construction.
Yet, I feel, I would have been in a leading administrator role by now or much before had I been in the US. Taking infant steps in India, still will not provide the necessary power and position that I deserve, just because of the glass ceiling that exist for the working women in India.
Family environment abroad vs. family environment in India.
It appears that the family environment in India is more favorable for working women with children who are fortunate to have their parents or in-laws staying with them. In western countries, society is more individualistic and more accepting of senior citizens enjoying life after retirement instead of caring for grandchildren. Grandparents’ supervising or providing childcare to working parents is an exception, rather than the rule. Whereas in India, most grandparents look after their grandchildren voluntarily or when requested to by their employed children. Again, the traditional perception of women in Indian society hinders them from undertaking work-related travel or work beyond office hours due to family’s conservative views. Their western counterparts have more flexibility in this matter.Provisions and policies abroad vs. in India.
From a policy perspective, maternity leave policies in India are liberal and in favour of working women compared to the US. However, developed nations such as the US, Canada, Germany, and Singapore have policies established to encourage gender diversity, mentoring, promote work-life balance, and a thorough policy on sexual harassment in the workplace. Such policies are non-existent or hardly enforced here in India.
Women must believe that they can find equal opportunity in the male-dominated field of construction.
In the capacity of Assistant Vice President of G R Infraprojects Limited, I deem it my pleasure to inspire the younger generation of women geotechnical engineers in devising / evolving techno-economic design, construction and implementation of new technologies leading to the preservation of natural resources in infrastructure development.I have walked the path and completed projects exceeding a century in the fields of pavement, materials and, geotechnical engineering in a career spanning 25 years. It has not been easy to venture into the hard-core construction industry, whilst changing over to a contractor firm after working in a consulting firm for 15 years. I started as the only woman engineer (or rather employee) amongst ten thousand male colleagues at site and office. The initial days were challenging. With the passage of time, the outlook towards hiring women in construction has changed; the recent hires give preference to women, which is a challenge achieved.
My favourite project…
By use of reinforced soil walls and slopes, significant safety has been exercised in the protection of the fill slopes, which, otherwise were meant to have a conventional retaining wall system. Reinforced Earth Wall in the hill road proved to be an effective solution with engineered design, which also saved the scarce aggregates in the weathered geological profiles. Also, composite hybrid systems in locations of appreciable heights (> 30m) proved to be an innovative and safe solution.
Maintaining quality in design and monitoring of site requires strong interfacing skills.
The savings in fuel, manpower, and machinery are my targets at work, maintaining quality design and close monitoring of site quality. It requires strong interfacing skills from design table to construction methodology to quality to construction and maintenance.Besides professional contributions, I am deeply involved in research to find amenable solutions for maximization of the best practices in Highway Engineering, as followed internationally, and tailor the designs to best suit the local conditions, conducive for the environment meeting the governmental initiatives of “Swachh Bharat Abhiyan”.
I have taken the initiative to disseminate the knowledge gained from the prestigious projects to mentor the team members so that they can further hone their skills. In the past 10 years, I have been able to nurture more than twenty junior engineers in the field of geotechnical engineering.
NBM&CW - March 2024
