Which was the first non-suburban railway station in India to be managed entirely by women?

In March 2018, the Gandhinagar railway station in Jaipur, Rajasthan, under the North Western Railway, became India's first non-suburban railway station to be run entirely by women. Every job at the station is done by women staff, including the station master, ticket checkers, booking clerks, railway protection force (RPF) staff, pointsmen and announcers. About 40 women staff work there in shifts.

The station is on the Jaipur-Delhi route and handles many trains every day. The initiative was meant to promote women's empowerment and show that women can handle all kinds of railway work. To make it convenient for passengers and staff, the station also installed a sanitary napkin vending machine and improved security with CCTV cameras.

Earlier, in 2017, Matunga railway station on the Central Railway's suburban line in Mumbai became the first suburban railway station in India to be run entirely by women. It entered the Limca Book of Records in 2018 for this achievement.

Some other women-run railway stations and "firsts" in Indian Railways:

• Ajni (Nagpur) and Chandragiri (Andhra Pradesh) are among other stations later run by women.
• Surekha Yadav became Asia's first woman train driver (loco pilot) in 1988 on Central Railway; in 2023 she drove the Vande Bharat Express.
• Jaya Varma Sinha became the first woman chairperson and CEO of the Railway Board in 2023.
• Indian Railways is one of the world's largest railway networks and one of the largest employers in the world.

Why not the other options?

• ✗Matunga (Mumbai) was the first suburban station run entirely by women.
• ✗Gandhinagar Capital (Gujarat) is a redeveloped station with a hotel built over it.
• ✗New Delhi railway station is one of the busiest stations in India.