Ayyalasomayajula Lalitha (A Lalitha) (27 August 1919 – 12 October 1979) was India's first female engineer.

Early life and education

Ayyalasomayajula Lalitha was born in a

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India *Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language ** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode S ...

-speaking family in Madras (now

Chennai Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

) on 27 August 1919. She was married at 15 and in 1937, gave birth to her daughter Syamala. Her husband died four months later. Her father, Pappu Subba Rao, supported her wish to complete her secondary education and study engineering at the otherwise all-male

College of Engineering, Guindy The College of Engineering, Guindy (CEG) is a public engineering college in Chennai, India and is Asia's oldest technical institution, founded in 1794. It is also the oldest technical institution to be established outside Europe. History Due ...

(CEG) where he was a professor. At CEG, Lalitha studied alongside other women engineers P.K. Thressia and Leelamma Koshie (née George). As per her daughter, Lalitha was supported in the college by the administration and other students. ″Contrary to what people might think, the students at amma’s college were extremely supportive. She was the only girl in a college with hundreds of boys but no one ever made her feel uncomfortable and we need to give credit to this. The authorities arranged for a separate hostel for her too. I used to live with my uncle while amma was completing college and she would visit me every weekend. Lalitha graduated in 1943 with a degree in

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

- becoming India's first woman engineer. She completed her practical training with a one year apprenticeship in Jamalpur Railway Workshop, a major repair and overhaul facility.

Engineering career

After graduation, Lalitha worked at Central Standards Organisation, Shimla and helped her father research smokeless ovens and the jelectromonium (an electrical musical instrument). She spent a year of practical training in the electrical department of the East Indian Railways, before becoming a technical assistant in the Indian Government’s Office of the Electrical Commissioner. Following this, in 1948, Lalitha joined a British firm

Associated Electrical Industries Associated Electrical Industries (AEI) was a British holding company formed in 1928 through the merger of the British Thomson-Houston Company (BTH) and Metropolitan-Vickers electrical engineering companies. In 1967 AEI was acquired by GEC, to c ...

(AEI) in Calcutta and worked on the largest dam in India,

Bhakra Nangal Dam Bhakra Dam is a concrete gravity dam on the Sutlej River in Bhakra Village near Bilaspur in Bilaspur district, Himachal Pradesh in northern India. The dam forms the Gobind Sagar reservoir. The dam, located at a gorge near the (now submerged ...

, designing transmission lines, and substation layouts. She worked at AEI (later taken over by

General Electric Company The General Electric Company (GEC) was a major British industrial conglomerate involved in consumer and defence electronics, communications, and engineering. The company was founded in 1886, was Britain's largest private employer with over 250 ...

) for nearly thirty years before she retired in 1977. In 1953 the Council of the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE) of London elected her to be an associate member, and promoted her to full member in 1966. Lalitha was the only female engineer from India to have attended the First International Conference of Women Engineers and Scientist (ICWES) in New York in 1964.Mohan, Shantha. (24 May 2017)
"The First Woman Engineer in India"
''SWE All Together.'' Lalitha was elected as a member of the British

Women's Engineering Society The Women's Engineering Society is a United Kingdom professional learned society and networking body for women engineers, scientists and technologists. It was the first professional body set up for women working in all areas of engineering, pred ...

in 1965 and served as the Organising Committees' India representative for the Second International Conference of Women Engineers and Scientist (ICWES) held in

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

in July 1967 and ensured that five women from India were able to attend.

Personal life

Lalitha did not remarry after her husband's death. She lived for most of her life with her sister-in-law who helped to bring up her daughter Syamala, who took degrees in science subjects and became a mathematics teacher. In 1979, Lalitha died of a brain aneurysm, aged 60.

References

Other sources

Roots and Wings, by Shantha Mohan.
Covers Lalitha and many other early women in engineering in India. {{DEFAULTSORT:Lalitha, Ayyalasomayajula Indian women engineers 1919 births 1979 deaths College of Engineering, Guindy alumni Scientists from Chennai 20th-century Indian women scientists 20th-century women engineers 20th-century Indian engineers Women's Engineering Society Indian engineers Telugu people