A woman fixes a line fault in Uttaranchal.

New Delhi, Dec. 5: You can spot them clambering atop electricity poles, towering giant-like over the rolling hills. Or perched precariously at the top or somewhere in-between fixing some glitch or the other.

Or down below, diligently taking electricity meter readings and running to deliver the bills at homes in the remotest of hamlets.

Meet the new power women of Uttaranchal.

For the first time in the country, rural women have started doing what only macho males were thought capable of so far: lending a hand in electricity distribution and maintenance. And they are doing it so well that the men have begun to feel threatened.

Fed up with the nonchalance and chronic alcoholism of its male workers, the Uttaranchal Power Corporation (UPC) last year signed up 400 women to take charge of reading electricity meters, preparing bills and delivering them to clients. The fallout: the corporation has recorded a whopping 20 per cent increase in revenue collection over the past year.

“I am absolutely delighted. We had not planned to engage women in repair and maintenance. But they are so good that nobody can stop them from spreading their wings,” UPC chairman and managing director B.M. Verma told The Telegraph.

The idea of employing rural women flashed during a “frustrating and tiring” trip to Uttarkashi a year ago, he said.

“We had gone to inaugurate a 33 KV substation. The gram panchayat head kept grumbling — ‘we never got our electricity bills, the line faults are never repaired and the local electrician is forever drunk.’”

Just then, the electrician sauntered in, Verma recounted, and true to complaints, he was totally sloshed in the afternoon.

“That is the problem with men. They are addicted to alcohol, never respond to complaints. We were not getting any payments, the bills were not being delivered… In short, both the department and the consumers were unhappy.”

Hassled and at his wit’s end, Verma toyed with possible solutions on his way back.

That was when the idea struck.

The first woman who signed up was a widow, Razia Begum, who was trained to read meters and distribute bills at Rs 6 per connection. When she made Rs 2,000 in two months — enough to feed her family — word spread and the women came flocking.

“Learning to read meters was not a problem. I could do it very efficiently in just three days,” said Pushpa Chauhan, a meter reader from Uttarkashi.

“The best part is it is not a job that keeps me away from home for long.”

More women are now queuing up for jobs as meter readers and bill distributors.

Some are even aspiring to be maintenance workers, which the men are starting to resent.

But Kalpana Bhatt, a widow with three kids, is unfazed.

“It involves climbing electricity poles, fixing transformers and line faults. But that is no rocket science. I can do it, and very easily too,” she said.

What is worrying Kalpana, however, is that her male colleagues may play dirty and “sabotage” her chances.

The power corporation confirmed that men had tried to make mischief, but was confident that women would be able to handle it.