Girls are now looking for their careers in the sugar industry which was considered to be a dream few years back. Considered as a rural, agro-based industry, neither industry nor girls considered it to be the befitting place to work. However, with the change in model of sugar factories which are more like agribusiness complexes now, professional and open minded approach and improvement in law & order and connectivity, the perception has changed.
National Sugar Institute, Kanpur has played a pivotal role in bringing about this change working hand in hand with the sugar industry. “While on the one hand we convinced the sugar units that many duties particularly of process management, quality control, environment management, documentation and machinery designing can be efficiently performed by them, on the other hand, we launched a campaign among girl students about the opportunities available in the sugar industry,” explained Prof. Narendra Mohan, Director of the Institute.
The institute worked hard on this aspect and slowly the girl students started making enquiry about various courses conducted by the institute and job prospects. In this academic year, a record 22 girl students are studying at the institute in different courses, said Shri Ashok Garg, Officer In-charge (Education). Now we have mostly girl research scholars working in various research projects taken up by the institute, he said.
“There are still some challenges and we are continuously having dialogue with the big sugar companies and apex organizations. However, recruitment of these girl students by some reputed sugar companies, machinery manufacturing companies and consulting firms is a welcome sign,” said Director.
