The 12-woman crew handles all operations in the bottling plant, except loading of cylinders
LEH: Every morning, Tsering Angmo leaves her two-year-old son with neighbours and commutes 20 km a frozen landscape from her home in Choglamsar, a settlement near Leh, to work at Ladakh’s only LPG bottling plant near Leh.
Angmo is part of a 12-member all-women crew making sure the 50,000 Indian soldiers eyeballing the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) in Arctic temperature do not have to march on empty stomachs.
The plant, built by state-run Indian Oil, together with refills stored by Hindustan Petroleum, is Ladakh's only source of cooking gas and a lifeline after once snow snaps road connectivity with the rest of the country. About 40% of the refills produced at the plant go to the defence establishment. It is also the country’s only LPG unit to be operated by women.