In a first, Indian-Railways appoints all-women team for technical maintenance
In its rich 165-year history, the Indian Railways never had a group of women working for technical maintenance of the train coaches, until now. 20 women from the Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) have been chosen for maintaining the coaches in pit lines, which is basically a male-dominated domain. Pit line is the maintenance facility in a depot for cleaning, repairing and maintaining the coaches.
The women were given training for over three weeks
They will be working at the Coach Maintenance Depot in Guwahati, where 1,000 technicians work on a daily basis in three shifts. With the increasing number of trains going to and from the Assam capital, there was a need to increase the manpower. Thus, these women were given the theoretical and practical training for nearly a month, with special focus on safety check mechanism.
These women 'gang'sters are elated, naturally!
The groups who work in pit lines are called gangs and these women are elated to be 'gang'sters. "I have been involved in the maintenance of coaches for 12 years now. All this while, I have worked with men in groups. It feels wonderful to be part of an all-women team and to know that we are the first," said Maituli Rajbongshi.
In pilot project, 20 women were provided training
"These ladies have been involved in ancillary maintenance works like curtain repair, painting of signage etc with male counterparts," said Pranav Jyoti Sharma, NFR spokesperson. He further said, "As a pilot project, 20 of them (of technician grade) were selected and provided training to be part of an all-women gang", adding that this step was taken for their convenience.
