Question

Give a brief life sketch of Laxmi Lakra.

Answer 1

Hint: Laxmi Lakra created history in 2006 when she became the first woman engine driver for Northern Railways in India and she was from Jharkhand.

Complete Step by Step answer:
She was born in a tribal family in Salgi, a village near Ranchi, Jharkhand. Her father worked as a construction labourer and had to provide for all 4 of his children. At the age of 5, she enrolled in a district government school. After graduating from high school in 1996, she went on to obtain a diploma in electronics. In college, she started borrowing her friends’ scooters and motorbikes to drive during her free time. With the support of her family, she went on to clear the Railway Recruitment Board Test in her first attempt at the age of 27 and was the only woman in a batch of 372 trainees.

Looking back she recalls that even though her parents were illiterate, they never discriminated between her brothers and her and her sister, all of whom had been given the freedom to choose their careers. She went through 6 weeks of Learning Road training followed by a rigorous 33 weeks of further training. During her training, she first drove a super fast ABB locomotive from Ghaziabad to Ambala. After her training, she was certified to drive light engines and goods trains in the Delhi circle and Ambala. She hopes to drive the super fast Shatabdi express someday. She truly has been an inspiration for women in our country and continues to shatter gender norms.

Note: Surekha Yadav from Mumbai became India’s first woman engine driver when she joined the Central Railways in 1992. Laxmi Lakra is the second woman ever to achieve this feat.