Pratibha Kumbhar, a 35-year-old mother of two, is making up for lost time.
Trained in soldering, she aspired to a career in electrical work but hemmed saris for her husband's tailor shop in the west Indian city of Pune until two years ago, when she found work in the country's fast-expanding electric vehicle (EV) sector.
Kumbhar's ambition, stalled by motherhood and safety worries about working in a roadside electrical shop, has now taken wings as she assembles circuits for EV speedometers at a factory in Pune - her first job as a formal worker with fixed wages.
She is one of a small but growing group of women blazing a trail amid India's EV boom, driven by record sales and a policy push, as the government seeks to cut planet-heating emissions by promoting the use of electric scooters, rickshaws and cars run on power that is set to become increasingly clean over time.
Despite concerns over safety and quality, as well as a shortage of charging stations, demand for EVs is outstripping supply - and as firms ramp up production, they are offering rare jobs to women in an auto industry that has been male-dominated.
"I work fixed hours and I am financially independent," said Kumbhar, assembling circuits with pink-gloved fingers on an all-female shop-floor at Kinetic Communications, a manufacturer of EV components and a subsidiary of Indian auto-maker Kinetic Group.
"My soldering is good and I may get a promotion. This was my dream," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
The factory's workforce is about four-fifths women, which goes against the grain in India, where only 20% of women are in the labour force.
The South Asian nation has one of the world's lowest female participation rates, far below the global average of 47% of women
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