Women and metro: CMRL operation room run by women from backward district

Chennai: It is time to change your opinion if you had thought that operating a metro rail is a preserve of men hailing from blue-bricked engineering universities. A handful of diploma graduates from rural Tamil Nadu have belied that conservative wisdom and proved that operating metro trains does not require imported brains. The operation control centre (OCC) of CMRL, which is the nerve center of the 45km fully automated network, is run mostly by young men and women hailing from backward districts. Meet traffic controller C. Naganandhini of Salem.

No metro train on the 10km elevated Koyambedu – Alandur corridor will start or stop on the route without the knowledge or rather approval of the first generation diploma graduate (electrical engineering) from Jalagandapuram near Mettur, 50kms off Salem. Her colleague Syed Ibrahimm, another traffic controller, hails from Harikesavanallur village in Tirunelveli. “Our job is to clear the route or stop the trains wherever necessary,” said Nandhini, who was decked up in a blue blazer and red tie like her few other colleagues, pointing to the four monitors on her desk overseeing the life-size monitor of the OCC from where she was controlling the train 211202 during an embedded media tour of the CMRL headquarters in Koyambedu this morning.

The two signal controllers in the OCC are also young female diploma grads from rural Tamil Nadu. Recruited in mid 2013, they were trained for a year, including the four-month practical working experience at DMRC (Delhi Metro Rail Corporation) during October 2013 – February 2014 period. When the city’s maiden metro network gets going on a commercial basis, hopefully in the first half of July, it will be these diploma grads from humble rural backyards, which will keep the high and mighty of the city moving.