The Hindu Business Line : The Railways' gangwomen

Behind every successful and safe train journey is the hard work and care of thousands of gangmen and gangwomen, who inspect and maintain the railway track. They work as guards on the tracks, ensuring that the 10,000 trains of the Indian Railways (IR) can ferry millions of passengers and tonnes of freight safely across the country.

Prior to 1980, IR hired only men for gang duty, mainly due to the arduous nature of the work. The gangs are exposed to extreme weather and often work in hostile terrain. The need to create more employment avenues for women — besides the commitment to provide jobs to widows and female dependants of deceased railway staff — made the organisation encourage women for this kind of work. It is also a fact that women were not applying for these jobs prior to the 1980s.

Today, there are over 3,000 gangwomen with IR, and around 500 are posted with the Southern Railways. The numbers are likely to increase as selections are now on through the Railway Recruitment Boards (RRBs). The selection involves running 400 metres, lifting weights and clearing a written test that examines the candidates' general knowledge and arithmetic skills. "Strangely, most of the women who apply are graduates," says Priyamvada Viswanathan, Member Secretary, RRB, Chennai. In several cases, gangwomen hail from railway families.

Each gang has 10 to 12 members, headed by a supervisor, and its fundamental role is to clear the track of ballast and check track fittings by `deep screening'. In layperson's language, this means cleaning the stones of caked mud, shards of broken material and garbage — like plastic cups — on which the tracks are laid; restoring loose stones to their original position under the track; and checking whether the fasteners are in place. These are vital for rail safety. Uneven ballast can make the ride bumpy or even cause a derailment. As for track fittings, if they are not secure, accidents will occur.

The Indian Railway Permanent Way Manual (permanent way or P-Way is technical terminology for rail track) lays down the duties of gangmen and gangwomen. They have to be conversant with safety rules and track geometry. The equipment they are required to carry indicates the complex nature of their duty — level-cum-gauge (an instrument to measure the tracks), hemp cord, metre stick, keying or spiking hammer, fish bolt spanner, hand-signal flags, detonators, marking chalk and rail thermometers, and hand-signal lamps at night.

The rail thermometer, for instance, is used to measure track temperature. If the track is too hot, it will buckle and cause the train to run off the tracks. The gangs pour water to cool the track down!

Come rain or shine, on the plains and in the hills, these hardy women work — carrying shovels and crowbars — inspecting the track and performing routine maintenance. In South India, many can be heard shouting `ailasa, ailasa' (which means `lighten the burden' in Tamil) while working.

Kumudha, 47, whose work belies her spare appearance, says with pride, "Yes, it is very tough and physically exhausting but I do it as well as any man can." Manavalan, her superior, agrees. He says the all-women gang — comprising 12 women and a maistry (supervisor) in the Chennai Division of the Southern Railways — does the job as well as the men would do. Moreover, "they are punctual and regular."

The day for Kumudha and her fellow gangwomen begins at 4 a.m., when they wake up and cook for their families and themselves. They report for work at 7.30 a.m., take an hour's break for lunch, and end the day at 4.30 p.m. All gangmen and gangwomen are dressed in sky blue, with the women usually wearing a sky blue sari and blouse.

In recognition of their service and dedication, the gangwomen of Chennai Division were conferred the Divisional Railway Managers Award during the Railway Week in April 2005. The gangs report to the P-Way Inspector, who has a length of track as his responsibility. The work is assigned to gangs on a planned basis and they work eight hours daily with a weekly off on Sundays, when no track maintenance work is done.

The gang is equipped to deal with minor problems such as fixing small deviations in gauge or elevation of the rails, rearranging ballast, etc.

Kumudha is illiterate while her colleague Pasupathi, 52, has passed Class 6. Both women's husbands, who were part of IR, died on duty.

S.K. Gupta, Chief Track Engineer, Southern Railways, says gangwomen have become an integral part of the Railways. Acknowledging that women work better in a gang with other women, IR has also formed all-women gangs. In the other gangs too, rarely is there a single woman among many men.

Pasupathi says that apart from regular salary, the women get free medical aid, free travel, subsidised housing and pension after retirement. Dakhshayani, who has been a gangwoman for 15 years, says emphatically that she cannot think of doing any other job.

Kumudha says her work has equipped her to send her daughter to an engineering college to study information technology.

The high point of her career was when she saved a young woman from committing suicide on the tracks.

Women's Feature Service

More Stories on : Gender | Railways | Human Resources

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Bon B'lore appetit

Tackling osteoarthritis

The Railways' gangwomen

Time to give back

A fortnight in paradise

An American vaidji

Bizarre at best