The Indian Railways on Thursday launched the Meri Saheli initiative for focused action on the security of women passengers across all zones.

An initiative of the Railways Protection Force, the strategy entails interaction with women passengers, especially those traveling alone, by a team of young women RPF personnel at the originating station, according to a statement by the national transporter.

These women passengers will then be briefed about all precautions to be taken during the journey and told to dial 182 in case they face or see any problem in the coach, it said.

The RPF team collects only the seat numbers of the ladies and conveys them to stoppages en-route, the statement said.

“The platform duty RPF personnel at the stopping stations en-route keep unobtrusive watch over the coaches concerned and berths and if the need arises, interact with the women passengers,” the statement added.

RPF/RPSF escort onboard also covers all the coaches/identified berths during its duty period.

“RPF teams at the destination collect the feedback from the identified lady passengers. The feedback is then analyzed and corrective action, if any, is taken. If some distress call comes from a train covered under the ‘Meri Saheli’ initiative, the disposal of the call is monitored at the level of senior officers,” the statement said.

The initiative was started as a pilot project in the South Eastern Railway in September 2020. After positive feedback from the women passengers, it was extended to all the zones and Konkan Railway with effect from October 17, 2020.

Objective:

The Railway Ministry decided to launch the Meri Saheli initiative with an aim of providing safety and security to the women passengers who will be traveling by trains for their whole journey from the starting station to the destination station.

It will instill a sense of security among the women passengers traveling through short or longer routes of the train. The initiative also aims at responding effectively to any security-related issue faced by the women traveling from trains.

Mean-while, The country’s one-day coronavirus tally rose by almost 14 percent with a jump of 49,881 new COVID-19 infections taking India’s overall Covid numbers past the 80 lakh mark, the Health Ministry data shows. The country also reported 517 deaths in the last 24 hours. The overall Covid related fatalities now stand at 1,20,527.

India’s COVID-19 caseload surpassed the 80-lakh mark on Thursday with 49,881 new cases, while the recoveries have surged to 73.15 lakh pushing the national recovery rate to 90.99 percent, according to the Union Health Ministry data.

The total coronavirus cases mounted to 80,40,203 and the deaths climbed to 1,20,527 with the novel coronavirus virus claiming 517 lives in a span of 24 hours in the country, the data updated at 8 am showed. The COVID-19 case fatality rate has further declined to 1.49 percent.