Kolkata: In its bid to focus on women empowerment, Eastern Railway has appointed two lady locomotive drivers, first time in its history of over 62 years. Moumita Adhikari and Suruchi Kumari were appointed as locomotive driver and assistant locomotive driver (Electric) for ER's Asansol division in the field of electric locomotive operations, ER CPRO RN Mahapatra said on Saturday.
"This is for the first time that ER will have women locomotive drivers. Both the ladies were appointed for the posts and underwent a training for six months period after which they successfully faced a competence test and are driving trains for the last six months," Mahapatra said.
"We are proud to announce this on the eve of the Women's Day. We consider this feat as a major step towards women empowerment. Not only this we are also encouraging more and more women to join ER. In fact we will be happy to have lady drivers in Kolkata's Metro Railways too," he said.
Incidentally, Central Railway's Surekha Yadav, was Asia's first motorwoman to pilot its suburban trains. Yadav had begun her stint as an assistant locomotive driver before becoming a motorwoman in 2000.
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