Pioneering Indian Women Engineers

Who you are and what you become are different things, yet both are defined by the choices made and the journey of your life. Someone rightly said – you are the writer of your story, the path, adventure, and decisions your take – could make or break history. Building on this, here we bring 5 pioneering Indian women engineers who did the same:

1. Shakuntala Bhagat

Daughter of bridge engineer S. B. Joshi, Shakuntala A. Bhagat was the first woman civil engineer in India. She pioneered many innovative designs and founded Quadricon — a Mumbai-based construction firm that’s designed 200 bridges across the world, including the UK, USA, and Germany. Bhagat worked as Assistant Professor in Civil Engineering in IIT-Bombay, from 1960 to 1970. She designed over 200 Quadricon steel bridges, of spans ranging from 18m to 138m. She developed the concept of designing Bhagat Unishear Connectors through 11 prototypes, perfected through applications. S.A. Bhagat was awarded the highest award from the Invention Promotion Board for inventing ‘Unishear Connectors’ in 1972. Shakuntala was awarded the ‘Woman Engineer of the Year’ award in 1993.

2. Ayyalasomayajula Lalitha

Born in a Telugu-speaking family in Madras, Lalitha set an exemplary example of how women can battle the world singlehandedly. She was widowed at the age of 18 and a single mother who made her own space in the world dominated by men. At the time when no woman had stepped foot in the field of engineering, Lalitha’s father supported her wish to complete her secondary education and study engineering at the otherwise all-male College of Engineering, Guindy. Lalitha graduated in 1943 with a degree in electrical engineering and completed her practical training with a 1-year apprenticeship in Jamalpur Railway Workshop, a major repair, and overhaul facility. Throughout her career, she stressed providing women with equal footing in the other-wise make dominated field of engineering.

3. P K Thresia

College of Engineering, Guindy, the University of Madras in the 1940s saw 3 women, the first of their kind, receiving an engineering degree. One of them was PK Thresia, the 1st woman Chief Engineer in the Public Works Department (Kerala). She was a true trailblazer in a field that continues to date to be heavily male-dominated. She was also the first woman in Asia to serve as a chief engineer in a state’s PWD. As a chief engineer, Thresia ensured infrastructural development in her tenure contracting at least 35 new bridges every year and road construction projects. Additionally, she also worked on many projects related to the construction of hospitals like the women’s and children’s hospitals affiliated to the Kozhikode Medical College. She was definitely not the one who shied away from carrying out experiments, Thresia also pioneered rubberized bitumen roads in Kerala.

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