Jaipur: For the past three and a half years, more than 3.6 lakh residents of Jaipurcity—living across 23 wards of Jaipur Municipal Corporation—depend on a group of around 20 women for their daily supply of drinking water.On Oct 10, 2022, Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) declared its Malviya Nagar division as a “Pink Circle” and appointed women in all roles, from executive engineer to Group D staff. “It’s a matter of pride for me to take care of a division that is entirely run by women employees. We try to give our best services to the 3.6 lakhs residents to whom we supply the Bisalpur Dam water daily,” said Bhawana Meena, executive engineer who oversees the Malviya Nagar division under Jaipur (South) Circle of PHED.Besides the daily supply of Bisalpur water, the group of women is responsible for providing new water connections, maintenance of pipelines and other infrastructure of the department, raising bills, checking illegal connections and usage of illegal booster pumps at households, and realising the due bills as well.“Besides normal working hours, we also carry out our duties during odd hours. Often, members of this team can be spotted in the wee hours or late nights—during the actual water supply time—to ensure everything is fine. For most of us, it’s not just convenient work-from-office jobs. We need to move around areas under our jurisdiction to ensure that residents are not left thirsty,” Meena said.Unlike other govt offices, this PHED office located near Sector II Satkar Shopping Mall in Malviya Nagar has pink walls, a colour symbolising both feminism and the historic Walled City.
