Shivani Singh, 22, overcome the obstacles to become a pilot in the Namo Bharat train
One of the pilots of Namo Bharat, the country’s first semi-high-speed rail system, Shivani Singh, 22, has told the tale of how she rose from low beginnings to obtain the position. When Shivani’s father passed away at the age of twelve, the six-member family was faced with difficult circumstances. Following her father’s passing, she and her family had financial difficulties, so she turned to her sewing abilities to fund her studies, according to The Times of India.
Shivani attended Bhagwati Institute of Technology and Science in Dasna for two years as a diploma student in electrical engineering, partly funded by her sewing talents.
“I had become bored and had taken up sewing.” Eventually, it enabled me to make a financial contribution to my family. My older brothers helped me while I was in school, but eventually I had to decide to stand on my own two feet. Using the money I had saved, I enrolled in and finished a two-year electrical engineering diploma program,” she told The Times of India.
When a government business came seeking for individuals to operate trains on the Regional Rapid Transit System (RRTS) between Delhi and Meerut, Shivani was chosen via campus recruiting. The RRTS corridor’s first phase of trains running between Delhi, Ghaziabad, and Meerut was officially unveiled by Prime Minister Modi in 2023, with the entire unveiling scheduled for 2025. After many months of preparation, Shivani is leading the Namo Bharat trains through the priority part.
She remembers the day the RRTS corridor’s first segment was officially opened. She was placed in the back of the Namo Bharat train with her pal Reshma.
“We felt like airline pilots since we were wearing our uniforms, which consisted of blue jackets and red caps. The image of the PM raising the flag and the audience screaming still gives me chills,” Shivani was reported as saying by The Times of India.
Shivani received a year of training as a pilot for the Namo Bharat train from the National Capital Region Transport Corporation (NCRTC) along with 18 other women. The first three months of the women pilots’ deployment to Lucknow Metro were spent learning how to run contemporary trains.
According to Shivani, during the last nine months, they attended theoretical and practical lessons at the Duhai depot, where they gained extensive knowledge about operating fast rail trains. She went on to say that they were taught on simulators at first, and then on actual trains.
