Women’s Era: Ola’s e-scooter factory in TN to be an all-women plant
Virendra Pandit
Chennai: Employing more than 10,000 women at full scale, cab aggregator Ola’s ambitious electric scooter factory in Tamil Nadu will be the world’s largest all-women factory run entirely by females, its co-founder said on Monday.
“Aatmanirbhar Bharat (Self-Reliant India) requires Aatmanirbhar Women (Self-Reliant Women)! Proud to share that the Ola Futurefactory will be run ENTIRELY by women, 10,000+ at full scale! It’ll be the largest all-women factory in the world!! Slightly smiling face,” Ola Co-Founder Bhavish Aggarwal tweeted while sharing a video featuring the first batch of women hired to work at the facility, located on a 500-acre site in Krishnagiri district of Tamil Nadu.
In a blog post, Aggarwal said Ola welcomed the first batch of women workforce this week. “At full capacity, Futurefactory will employ over 10,000 women, making it the world’s largest women-only factory and the only all-women automotive manufacturing facility globally”.
This is the first in a series of initiatives Ola is set to roll out to create a more inclusive workforce and provide economic opportunities for women across the board, he pointed out.
Aggarwal said Ola has invested significantly to train and up-skill women in core manufacturing skills. They will be responsible for the entire production of every vehicle manufactured at Ola Futurefactory.
“Enabling women with economic opportunities to improve not just their lives but that of their families and indeed the whole community. In fact, studies show that just providing women parity in the labor workforce can grow India’s GDP by 27 percent,” he said.
In manufacturing, the participation of women remains the lowest at just 12 percent, he said.
“For India to be the world’s manufacturing hub, we must prioritize up-skilling and generating employment for our women workforce,” Aggarwal added.
Ola had announced an Rs. 2,400-crore investment in 2020 to set up its first world-class electric scooter factory in Tamil Nadu.
The world’s largest scooter manufacturing facility would, in the first phase, start with the production of 10 lakh e-scooters per annum and then scale up the capacity to 20 lakh, in line with market demand.
When completed, Ola Electric said its plant would have an annual manufacturing capacity of one crore units, “that is 15 percent of the world’s entire total two-wheeler production”.
In July, Ola received a massive response when it opened e-scooter bookings at just Rs. 499. On August 15, the company unveiled its Ola S1 electric scooter in two variants — S1 and S1 Pro — at price tags of Rs. 99,999 and Rs. 1,29,999, respectively, (ex-showroom including FAME II subsidy and excluding state subsidies).
But the sale, scheduled to start on September 8, was postponed by a week to September 15 as it faced “technical difficulties” in making the website for purchases live for customers.
