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Journalism of Courage
Bahurupi was the youngest sarpanch of her village. Now she is among the first 2,206 lineswomen of the country. And she loves it all from collecting dues to fixing power lines up poles
As sarpanch of Rajura Bazaar village in Amravatis Warud tehsil,Priti Bahurupi was the youngest to hold the post. At 27,she has pole-vaulted to an all new high,literally. Bahurupi is among the 2,206 women shortlisted for phase-wise recruitment as line staffer or Vidyut Sahayak by Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited MSEDCL the vanguard breaking through another gender glass ceiling in the country.
It was in June this year that she began her new job at Malkapur in Buldhana. Now her day begins at 9 am,with a junior engineer handing over a list of consumers who have not paid electricity bills for more than two months.
My area is 16 DTC distribution transformer metering,and I have to interact with consumers mainly in the Sindhi colony at Malkapur. I check the list,write their names and consumer numbers,and then visit each house,giving them two days to pay up, says Bahurupi.
She talks about a consumer who had defaulted. After waiting for two days,we cut the supply to his house. Not surprisingly,he came to the office to clear the dues.
Bahurupi has since figured out how to do things differently. With most of the consumers being businessmen in Sindhi Colony,I initially went to their shops. But then I decided to visit their homes instead. The women are friendly and once I tell them about the arrears that are pending,they soon pay up, she says. Her favourite line,Bahurupi chuckles,is,Didi,bill nahi bhara ab tak Sister,you havent paid the bill yet! .
It comes as a pleasant surprise to these women that there is a woman at their door instead of a linesman, she adds.
What Bahurupi loves the most about her job though is the thrill of the risks involved especially in going up electricity poles. The women received training at Amravati,Nashik and Sangli,but this basically entailed instructions on how to handle difficult assignments like maintenance of transformers and handling of electric cables. Most of the pole climbing has happened on the job.
After my daily duty of collecting arrears,I assist the linesman in handling pole work or in attending calls about fuses, she says.
A regular day begins at 9 am and ends only at 7 pm. Even if she has finished her daily collection of dues,she accompanies other linesmen as they go about their work and often,so engrossed is she that she breaks for lunch only by around 4 pm.
I know I do not have to accompany them,but it is fun to learn so many new things. For instance,even if the linesman is working atop a pole,it is important that I wait below and hand over instruments such as pliers etc. By the time I get home,it is almost 7 pm. I say my prayers,go for a walk or mingle with neighbours till I get my tiffin from the mess at 8.30 pm, she says.
Most weekends she can be found back at the office,learning typing on a computer.
Its a far cry from her earlier job. She won the sarpanch election three years ago,in a village with 10,000 people,after the post was reserved for women. With her MLA fund,she says: We set up a crematorium and streamlined issues related to providing medical care.
Bahurupi later opted for an Industrial Training Institute ITI technical course and applied for the post of Vidyut Sahayak.
Now she stays 100 km from home,in a room rented for Rs 1,500. Bahurupi spends a similar amount on meals,saving barely Rs 1,000 from her salary.
From a farming family,Bahurupi says her parents do not get worried about her staying alone,for the first time in her life,as they are confident that she can handle herself. But my father does visit me once a month, she concedes.
A visit such as the one to a Malkapur resident,Ramesh Bhombe,recently,however,makes all of it worthwhile. He had complained of erratic power supply. I was told to assist the linesman, Bahurupi says.
We climbed the pole and supported ourselves at an angle. It may have been a minor job and all that we had to do was switch off the supply and then clean and tighten screws on the transformer,but I mustered the courage to go up.
