The government has decided to appoint women as gatekeepers of the railway crossings on the Broad Gauge line. In this direction, the Railway Ministry has written to the Lucknow Division of the North-Eastern Railway (NER).
The letter mentions that the work of a gatekeeper is very crucial and requires a lot of physical strength. The job requires a lot of patience since one has to wait at the gate for long hours.
However, there are also times when trains need to be stopped at short notice. Salma Baig, a gate woman at the Western Railway’s Church gate station, has been a shining example of breaking gender barriers.
It is still a male-dominated profession. Salma, who is also a mother to a one-year-old, works a 12-hour shift full of strenuous physical labor and is determined to keep working and has no plans to rest anytime soon.
Salma has been working as a gatekeeper at the Western Railway’s Church gate station since 2007. She was inspired to take up this job after her husband died in 2008, leaving behind her two children to raise on her own.
Salma said that she had no other option but to work hard and make ends meet for herself and her children. “I started working as a part-time maid when my husband passed away in 2008. But I soon realized that it wasn’t enough money for me to survive on,” she said.