WOMEN’S DAY SPECIAL
Women leading urban rail and transport industry in India
Mrs. Rashmi Urdhwareshe, Director, ARAI
Image Credit: ARAI
Mrs. Rashmi Urdhwareshe is well known automotive research veteran who believes that when a professional – gender no bar but applicable especially to women – starts living the bigger picture and not subscribe to the ‘immediate circle of influence’ that the existence of glass ceiling in maledominated industries like automotive does not matter.
Born in Nagpur to professor parents, Mrs. Urdhwareshe grew up to be an NCC cadet, a State-level Bridge Champion, and an avid sports enthusiast at school and a trained Sitarist. A perfect match, Mrs. Urdhwareshe later found her life partner to be an engineering professional and an accomplished Accordion player!
She has risen from a trainee engineer to the Director of the Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI).
As a post-graduate in Electronics Engineering from the College of Engineering, Pune, Mrs. Urdhwareshe
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opted for a research position in instrumentation at ARAI in 1983. She never really had to break any societal condition – working in a traditional male bastion like the automotive sector – because ARAI was seen more ‘as a research or a homologation house’ instead of as a ‘hardcore automotive company’.
But sacrifices and challenges did exist, both at home and at work. As a young married woman with an infant son in 1986, she had to decide on whether to leave her 14-month-old baby at home and go on a UNDP fellowship to Germany to train in instrumentation development or give up the latter, “Though leaving my baby home for six months was tough, my spouse’s and family’s support helped me go through it. And it was a game-changer for me. I learnt a systematic approach to R&D of projects, application of electronics in automotives, besides managing and leading a team at a renowned vehicle manufacturer’s R&D center.” She thinks compatibility with the spouse is always critical. Mrs. Urdhwareshe’s career grew along with the growth of ARAI. “I developed electronic controls of hydraulic testing machines which were used extensively to set up of fatigue test laboratory at ARAI. I also contributed towards emission measurements under which the first-ever
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