Monday morning saw women employees of Infosys, Pune attend a first-of-its-kind workshop on the campus that entailed a demonstration on how to use the pepper spray for self-defence. With about 100 employees in attendance, mainly women and security personnel, Rana Singh, CEO of Bangalore-based Aax Global, the company that manufactures the spray and the one that recently supplied 200 cans to the Pune campus, conducted the workshop.

One can of the spray, called Cobra, costs Rs 499. “I was invited by the Infosys Pune to demonstrate to its women employees the way a pepper can is to be used. Earlier in the month Infosys had ordered 200 cans from our company and they were duly delivered. Now another order is in the pipeline’’ said Singh.

Another big Pune-based IT company too is his client, Singh said.

Satish Kulkarni, head of security, Infosys campus, said the workshop was conducted to tell employees how pepper sprays work and to encourage them to carry it. According to Kulkarni, the company is looking at equipping its women employees with cans in the near future.

While Singh has supplied Infosys with pepper cans earlier too, they were mainly for use of the security staff on the campus. This is the first time that orders were placed specially for equipping their women employees with the device, Kulkarni said.

The move comes after the rape and murder of a 22-year old Wipro employee last month that led to IT companies in the city stepping up security for their employees. A survey by the National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM) revealed that women make up 30 per cent of India’s IT industry and this slated to rise to 45 per cent by 2010.

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