'Meagre 6.7 pc of Railways' over 13 lakh workforce are women'

The number of women employees in the Railways is only 89,337 out of a total workforce of over 13 lakh, a Parliamentary Committee on Empowerment of Women has said.
A meagre 6.7 per cent of total 13,33,966 employees are women, the panel said.
"This poor representation is not just among those involved in arduous operational activities but also among those in the higher rung of administrative ladder.
"The Committee feel that it is the responsibility of every organisation to pitch in dedicated efforts to ensure equal gender participation in every job area by offering secure and favourable working conditions," the Committee said in its report.

The Committee has recommended the Railways should explore the possibility of conducting separate special recruitment drives to rope in more women employees into its workforce "for the progressive and holistic growth" of the Railways.
Railways should chalk out a well defined policy to make the service more attractive to women employees.

The Committee also expressed its "unhappiness" over Railways not maintaining centralised data on various important aspects like status of sexual harassment complaints received and action taken thereon.
"Railways do not maintain centralised data on important aspects like total number of women employees category-wise in the organisation, number of women employees in Group A and B services, status of sexual harassment complaints received and action taken thereon.

"The Committee feel that in this era of modern technology, it is not a mammoth task for any organisation to keep centralised data on important issues pertaining to organisation," it said.
Such centralised data would help the organisation to maintain the integrity of data, avid delay in obtaining information, and taking action thereon whenever requested from zonal offices and in monitoring other developments.
The Committee has recommended that Railways should develop centralised IT enabled Employees Information System at the earliest for "easy access to information and better synchronisation and coordination".