Ashwini Kumar, the chief executive of Smartivity, said the company was in talks with Walmart to sell its products on store shelves in the United States — a development that could more than double the number of jobs.
“They want to diversify,” Mr. Kumar, 35, said. “They want to shift their supply chain to India.”
At All Time Plastics, the company near Mumbai where Ms. Pawar is employed, 70 percent of the roughly 600 factory workers are women. The percentage rose sharply last year, after the local government changed the law to allow women to work on the night shift. The factory runs buses that pick up and drop off women at their homes to alleviate safety concerns.
Among the women working inside the factory on a recent morning was Smita Vijay Patel, 35. A mother of two, she stopped going to school after eighth grade because her parents lacked the money for tuition and books. Her own daughter, 15, remains in school and plans to continue to college, a prospect made possible by Ms. Patel’s factory wages. Her son, 19, is already at university.
Ms. Patel is now effectively working two jobs: She is a quality control inspector at the plant, and she cooks for her family and looks after the house, waking up at 5 in the morning to get to her 7 a.m. shift.
“It’s hard, but good,” she said. “I didn’t get education, so I’m thinking that my children should get education so they will make more progress.”
Hari Kumar contributed reporting.
