Indian Railways: Leading Economic Growth and Women's Empowerment
Indian Railway is a catalyst of economic growth and a promoter of women's development in the country. As it is the biggest employer in the country, the Indian Railway plays a vital role in providing job opportunities while India is the largest country in terms of population. According to the official data, among 13,28,199 employees, 84,931 are women as of March 31, 2011, for various roles and diverse functions.
Women's employability landscape in India is strengthening constantly with the help of the government’s robust policies and programmes. According to a McKinsey analysis, giving women equal opportunity may boost India's GDP by USD 770 billion, or more than 18 per cent, by 2025. And Indian Railway have much space at different levels to provide employment opportunities to women.
Several women broke the conservative norms of society and grasped the opportunities, and a number of such women is ample in the railway sector of India.
First Women In Indian Railway
Indian Railway has been the harbinger of women's empowerment and equal opportunities, there are several instances of women who become the first among them to occupy those positions and emerge as pathbreakers.
M Kalavathy
M Kalavathy was the first female member of the Indian Railway Service of Signal Engineers, Kalavathy was the railway aspirant from the 1981 batch.
Manju Gupta
Like M Kalavathy, Manju Gupta was the first member of the Indian Railway Service of Electrical Engineers and currently serving as Divisional Rail Manager in Bikaner Division.
Surekha Yadav
Driving is a critical skill and event in that women stay ahead of men, Surekha Yadav became the first woman train driver in 1988 and now has been appointed to drive the semi-high-speed Vande Bharat Express between Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus to Solapur.
Jaya Chauhan
Like other above-mentioned ladies, Jaya Chauhan also broke many stereotypes attached to women and became the first woman officer in the Railway Protection Force from the 1984 batch.
Policies & Programme
The central government and Railway ministry both roll out multiple policies and programmes to empower women working in the sector and increase the number of female employees in the Indian Railway.
There is a special skill development and training programme run by the Railway Ministry to provide learning opportunities and get employed by IR. Among 13 lakh employees, there are just 1 lakh women employees. Hence, the government constantly striving to increase their number.
In another way to induce women's empowerment, Indian Railways started to dedicate a whole train and railway station to females. Maninagar Railway Station (Gujarat) and Matunga Road Station (Mumbai, Maharashtra) are managed by women staff.
Ajni Railway Station located in Nagpur, Maharashtra has women track maintainers working for its cleaning, detecting the track defects and repairing them.
In addition to this, to increase the number of women leaders in the Indian Railway, the government has appointed all women TTEs for the Mumbai- Ahmedabad Shatabdi Express. Deccan Queen Express is another train that all run by a women's team.
Indian Railway being the largest employer in the country has been striving to promote women employees and leadership in the sector but still, the data suggest the number is not significant as per their ratio in the population, which calls for more government policies to involve women employees in the sector.
