Chennai Feb 5: Before sunrise each day, buses roll out across villages and townships around Kancheepuram district, carrying hundreds of women to one of Tamil Nadu’s largest electronics manufacturing hubs — the Chennai plant of Samsung India. On the shop floor, amid assembly lines and testing units, these women are doing more than building devices. They are building futures. This year marks three decades of Samsung’s presence in India — a journey often measured in products, innovation and exports. But inside its Chennai facility, another milestone is visible: the growing number of women shaping the factory floor and redefining what manufacturing looks like in Tamil Nadu. For Kavya, part of the employee relations team, the plant is a space of growth.
With a background in psychology, she works closely on employee well-being initiatives. “Here, I’ve learned and evolved,” she says. “Colleagues become friends. The workplace feels like family.” For Sangeeta, who has spent around a decade at the plant, the turning point was transportation. Long commutes once meant stress and safety concerns. Company-arranged door-to-door buses changed that. “It gave me confidence,” she says. “When travel is safe, you can focus on your work.”
Across Tamil Nadu’s industrial corridors, safe commuting has quietly become a key enabler for women entering manufacturing roles. Then there is Rekha from the Visual Display line who has been with Samsung Plant in Chennai for last 18 years. Her motivation is simple: her mother. “I want to give her everything she ever wished for,” she says. Two decades of stable employment has allowed her to support her family with dignity — a sentiment echoed by many first-generation industrial workers in the region.
As Tamil Nadu strengthens its position as an electronics manufacturing powerhouse, the image of the factory floor is evolving. In Sriperumbudur, women are present all across production, quality control and operations — contributing not just to output, but to communities. Three decades into its India journey, the company’s progress in Chennai is reflected not only in scale, but in stories of independence, safety and self-belief — one shift at a time.