All woman crew train flagged off from Visakhapatnam on Women’s Day

To commemorate International Women’s Day, a special all-women crew train flagged off from Visakhapatnam to Rayagada District. The honours were done by the President of East Coast Railway Women’s Welfare Organisation, Waltair Division, Parijata Satpath. Vice President of ECoRWWO, Kavita Gupta, Secretary Priyanka Sridevi and other executives of the ECoRWWO also took part in the flagging-off ceremony.

The Waltair Division has always been a forerunner in empowering women, by employing them in various areas such as track maintenance, train managing, loco pilots, ticket checking, train operations at route relay interlocking, and other office duties. Exclusive women’s teams were formed at loco sheds to maintain crucial parts of locos and Meri Saheli, an exclusive women’s security team operates to take care of women passengers in trains or at stations.

Loco pilot Sahana Kumari, Assistant Loco Pilot K Nagamani and Train Manager M Kalyanni were the three women who drove the goods train at the event. S Ambili, G Atchutamba, K Santoshi Rao and D Radha were the four ticket-checking staff.

President Parijata Satpath optimistically addressed that Women’s Day is the time to reflect on the progress made, to label change, and to honour the acts of courage and determination of ordinary women, who played an extraordinary role in the history of their community and society. “It gives immense pleasure and pride to share that train 08504 Visakhapatnam-Rayagada special, is entirely managed today by women employees. The entire staff today at Visakhapatnam Railway Station in operations, commercial, and RPF are also women staff”, said the president.

To celebrate the eve of International Women’s Day, a walkathon was arranged with the support of the Women’s Welfare Organisation led by Parijata Sarapathy at RK Beach. Divisional Railway Manager Anup Satpathy, ADRM (Operations) Manoj Kumar Sahoo, Senior Divisional Personnel Officer RNA Parida, Sports Officer Praveen Bhati and other branch officials, women staff, sportswomen, RPF, Civil Defense Personnel, were also a part of the walkathon.

Anup Satpathy, the Divisional Railway Manager, congratulated all the Women Team of the Waltair Division on this accomplishment of launching the all-women crew special train from Visakhapatnam.

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