Bengaluru: With a view to extending more protection to female passengers on trains, the Indian Railways has started a project called “Meri Saheli”.
Conceived by the Railway Protection Force (RPF) the move sees ladies of RPF having a word with women passengers at the source. The focus would be on single women. Also, the team would apprise the women passengers of all the precautionary measures that are taken and to dial 182 in case of emergency.
The RPF team collects only the seat numbers of the ladies and conveys them to stoppages en-route. The platform duty RPF personnel at the stopping stations en-route keep unobtrusive watch over the concerned coaches and berths and if need arises, interact with the lady passengers.
RPF/RPSF escort onboard also covers all the coaches/identified berths during its duty period, the ministry said.
RPF teams at the destination collect the feedback from the identified lady passengers. The feedback is then analysed and corrective action, if any, is taken. If some distress call comes from a train covered under “Meri Saheli” initiative, the disposal of the call is monitored at the level of senior officers, it said.
The “Meri Saheli” initiative was started as a pilot project in South Eastern Railway in September 2020 and after getting encouraging response from lady passengers, it was extended to all zones from 17 October 2020, the ministry added.