mumbai a young woman taking temperature measurements of large furnaces is an unlikely sight at the shopfloor of a cement manufacturing facility but mahashweta banerjee who is a production engineer at ambuja cements chandrapur factory in maharashtra has had no qualms about working 56 hours every day on the shopfloor since 2009 what can be especially stressful is the remote location of the factory 50 odd km from the main city with the nearest post office being 78 km away but banerjee who completed her chemical engineering from raipur institute of technology in 2009 says her safety is ensured there are no multiplexes here no malls but i am content says the 25year old who exercised her choice to work on the shopfloor when other female batchmates stuck to the conventional computer jobs banerjee is however comforted by the fact that more women are following in her footsteps six other women engineers are now working with banerjee on the shopfloor this is one among a growing trend of stories at companies which had traditionally not witnessed women coming into such mainstream jobs in large droves besides the number of women employees at ambuja cements has risen 40 since 2009 quite a few women engineers are now joining us although most of our plants are in remote areas they are keen on working on the shopfloor we try to give them a factory which is closer to their homes says meenakshi narain joint president hr ambuja cements most companies want to improve diversity at each level and across functional areas to usher in a healthy work atmosphere sunil goel director globalhunt an executive search firm says today most of the tiresome jobs are equipped with highend technologies which are convenient to handle automobile manufacturing retail and logistics and supply chain industries are largely dominated by men but it has been observed that companies are bringing up work place diversity aspect and women are getting equal opportunities with specific skills and functional training to handle a particular job says goel when blue dart express first got to know that its service counters in shillong had six territory sales representatives tsr all of whom happened to be lady blue darters it decided to encourage recruiting women at its other counters as well lady blue darters contribute about 13 to the total workforce today women usually avoid tedious functions like sales which involve outdoor duties but with shillong setting an example blue dart express intends to induct women in sales and operations as well for the first time the company has hired women management trainees mts in a structured manner they constitute 20 of the total mts recruited and have opted for sales and operations this is a welcome change considering that the logistics industry has always been perceived as a male domain we hope that this will pave the way for more ladies to consider the logistics industry as a lucrative career option says barttanu das senior vice president hr blue dart