Customs broken, woman drives truck from Tamil Nadu to Bangladesh
Times of India | 22 April 2024
Kolkata: When Annapoorani Rajkumar, around 40 years old, reached the Petrapole border checkpost with a load of cotton yarn after driving from Tamil Nadu for 10 days, covering around 1000km, on Sunday, she became an instant celebrity - the first woman trucker to cross over to Bangladesh, at a place where almost everyone else are men.
"Rajkumar reached Petrapole on Saturday night with a truck loaded with cotton yarn, which she was carrying from Visakhapatnam SEZ.She drove the truck for 10 days," said Kamlesh Saini, manager, Land Port Authority of India (LPAI), Petrapole.
Saini said Rajkumar faced a lot of logistical problems while driving along national highways. For one, there are no restrooms meant for women. "However, she was lucky to have found hotels, where she stayed and parked her truck," Saini said. Getting a room in roadside dhabas was a complete no-no for her, as those are completely male-dominated. Nor was she allowed to enter places where drivers normally stay and take rest, Saini said.
He added that Rajkumar was given a green channel to cross the border, following LPAI norms meant for women. "We had requested the Bangladesh authorities to quickly arrange to unload the cotton from her truck. Bangladesh also gave her special treatment, and she reached Petrapole by 12.30pm. The unloading was sped up, in a place where trucks often have longs waits in queue," Saini said.
He said Rajkumar spoke only Tamil, so it was difficult to talk with her. All communication was through a co-driver, who had just a smattering of Hindi. "We kept her in a women's dormitory after she returned from Bangladesh, as it has a separate toilet. We are now revamping facilities for women as we want to remove the gender bias, so that women can join as C&F (customs clearing and forwarding) agents," Saini said.
Rajkumar started her return journey on Sunday night.
'We encourage women to work at the border' ]
Kartick Chakraborty, secretary, Petrapole C&F Agents Welfare Association, said senior MHA officials, who had recently come to Petrapole from Delhi, were unhappy to see that it was still an overwhelmingly male bastion.
"Rekha Raikar Kumar, member (finance) of LPAI, had held a meeting on March 19 at Petrapole and asked us to prepare an environment that is congenial for women workers. We plan to encou-rage women to work at the border. But there is still some fear at the border after sunset, so even hotel staff are men," he said.