. Women’s Empowerment and Indian Railways

2. Women’s Empowerment and Indian Railways One is a talismanic cricketer – Mahendra Singh Dhoni and the other an iconic sprinter who scorched the tracks, P.T. Usha. One began his career with the South Eastern Railway and the other still works on Southern Railway. Prakriti and Purusha are an integral part of our ancient folklore and mythology. The entire creation is believed to be the synergy between these two principles; Prakriti is indicative of the feminine aspect and Purusha represents the masculine. The Ministry of Railways had assiduously devoted the year 2018 to the safety of women and children. This was a singular and momentous step, taken towards empowerment of women utilising the largest transportation network in the country. How many of us are aware that about one-fifth of the passengers travelling daily by various mail, express, passenger and suburban trains are women? Of the 23 million passengers who commute by the railways daily, as many as 4.6 million are women. Some major initiatives taken to provide facilities to women speak volumes of the guardianship and ministration being extended to women by the railway administration. Certainly it is not merely posturing or empty rhetoric. One of these is the Security Help Line, ‘182’ for women. This arrangement is ensured 24 by 7, for all travellers and in particular women passengers. The arrangement is functional through the Divisional Control Rooms of the Railway Protection Force (RPF) across Indian Railways. The helpline is accessible to all passengers, ensuring a security blanket during their journey. It is noteworthy to mention that helpline gets activated and ensures real time complaint resolution. Through the use of Twitter, maximal priority has been provided to women passengers so that any untoward incident can be combated promptly and with finesse. Passenger awareness programmes have been launched by a proactive railway administration by employing loud hailers/Public Address systems, besides pasting security stickers of the RPF control rooms. Assistance of technological tools such as Facebook and Twitter is being zealously used to play a pivotal role to redress the grievances of woman passengers. Another noteworthy initiative is the reservation of lower berths for lady passengers. A landmark step towards extending a hassle-free travel, a special quota has been ear marked on trains for senior women citizens, pregnant women and female passengers who have attained 45 years age of age. The software package of the Passenger Reservation System has been tweaked to provide lower berths (upto 6 lower berths in sleeper class, 3 lower berths per coach in III AC and 3 lower berths per coach in II AC). Besides on Rajdhani Expresses, the number of lower berths has been increased for woman passengers. To ensure greater comfort and safety of female travellers, the railway administration is operating Ladies Special EMU, MEMU, MMTS services on the suburban sections of metropolitan cities- Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata and also on the NCR sections of Delhi region. After the gut wrenching Nirbhaya episode which had rankled the collective conscience of the country, these are some very welcome and efficacious steps launched by the Ministry of Railways. Yet another exemplary, though relatively unknown step is that of escorting women passengers during travel. This has been done by pooling the personnel of the RPF and the Government Railway Police (GRP) to be a sort of duenna to woman passengers. It would be pertinent to mention that lady RPF personnel acted as midwives and facilitated 49 childbirths at stations and on moving trains while guarding the modesty and privacy of the would-be mothers. Definitely a feather in the cap! Continuing the trend of using technology to streamline work is the Access Control and Video Surveillance System. As a path breaking initiative the railway administration has installed CCTV cameras which encompass the integrated security system for the security of women at the station premises. The provisions of CCTV surveillance system which comes under the Nirbhaya Umbrella Fund has been expanded and commissioned over several stations of Indian Railways. Janani Sewa was introduced as a small gesture in order to ameliorate hardships faced by mothers travelling with their infants. The service led to the inclusion of a menu for infants and children at railway stations. This includes baby food items, warm milk and water and several meal combos under the auspices of the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC). Such items can be procured through passenger-friendly SMSs, mobile apps, and the four digit (1323) all India toll-free number. “Travelling alone does not mean you’re alone. Most often you meet marvellous people along the way and make connections that last a lifetime,” writes Jacqueline Boone, the founder of Boone Consulting, a global marketing and learning company. Suffice to say Indian Railways is providing the requisite ballast of comfort to ensure that women passengers feel part of the travel experience without any encumbrance and revisit railway travel.