Guwahati, March 7 (MExN): For the first time in the history of Indian Railways, the Coaching Depot in Guwahati is engaging an all-women team for maintenance of coaches. The all-women team will start maintenance work following their completion of training on March 8 – an apt occasion as the day also marks the International Women's Day. Maintenance work at pit lines – which is the maintenance facility in any Coach Maintenance Depot –entails the cleaning and maintenance work of the coaches once a train reaches its termination station and has predominantly been a male domain. The ladies were usually involved in ancillary maintenance works of the coaches relating to repair of curtains, indication boards painting, etc. However, with the increase in number of trains, the need arose for increasing maintenance capacity of the pit line at Guwahati. As such, the North East Frontier Railways (NFR) took up a project in the month of February 2018 to develop a maintenance team with only ladies staff. 20 ladies of Technician grade were selected in the Depot as a pilot and they were given classroom training over the various concepts of maintenance involved in a train in pit lines, the NFR’s Chief Public Relations Officer P.J. Sharma said. After the theoretical training, the batch was given hands-on practical training at pit line with the existing technicians and special focus was given on the safety checking aspects of the trains, Sharma added. The Depot has a coach holding of about 1300 and its activities are spread over Kamakhya, Paltan Bazaar and New Guwahati in Guwahati with a total of 6 pit lines and 2 sick lines and a staff of about 1000 technicians – out of which, about 200 are ladies.
