Breaking Barriers: Remembering India’s First Woman Engineer, Ayyalasomayajula Lalitha

CHENNAI: In a time when higher education for women in the country was rare and professional careers almost unthinkable, Ayyalasomayajula Lalitha etched her name into history as the India's first female engineer.

Born in 1919, Lalitha’s life was shaped by both tragedy and determination. Married as a teenager and widowed at just 18, she immense social pressure to conform to expectations.

Instead, encouraged by her father, Pappu Subba Rao, a professor at the College of Engineering, Guindy (CEG), she enrolled in engineering.

In 1943, she graduated with a degree in electrical engineering, becoming the only woman in her batch and the first in India to hold such a distinction.

Lalitha went on to work with the Central Standards Organization and later joined Associated Electrical Industries in Calcutta, where she worked for nearly three decades and contributed to major projects such as the Bhakra Nangal Dam—one of independent India’s largest hydroelectric ventures.

She designed systems, fixed failures, and bridged two worlds—British hardware and Indian ambition. Social norms barred her from traveling to project sites “widows should not travel,” they said—so she sent brilliance instead. She didn’t rebel loudly; she redefined rebellion with precision and perseverance. From behind her desk, she powered grids.

Her achievements extended beyond engineering. Lalitha represented India at the first International Conference of Women Engineers and Scientists in New York in 1964, cementing her legacy as a pioneer who opened doors for generations of women in STEM.

Draped in a saree, she stood tall in a gathering that was rewriting history. By 1966, she became a full member of the Institute of Electrical Engineers (London), a recognition that placed her firmly on the global stage.

When Lalitha passed away in 1979, she left behind not just unfinished blueprints, but a legacy that still hums quietly through India’s power lines.

Her name may not be shouted in classrooms, but the systems she designed, the grids she strengthened and the possibilities she opened up for women in engineering live on.

Decades after her death, women engineers in India began to rise in numbers. What had once been unthinkable—walking into an engineering college as the only woman—slowly became normal. Today, women make up a growing share of India’s technical workforce, often citing pioneers like Lalitha as silent inspirations, even if her story is not always told.

She never sought the spotlight, but today, as India pushes for greater gender balance, her life reads like a blueprint.