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| Women forest guards at the Assam Forest Guards’ School at Makum. A Telegraph picture |
Dibrugarh, Feb. 21: The male bastion inside the national parks of Assam is set to fall as women forest guards prepare to stride in to conserve the precious flora and fauna.
Come tomorrow and the 34 women who were appointed under various wildlife divisions spread across the state, will undergo a three-month-long Crash Induction Training Course at the Makum-based Assam Forest Guards’ School, which has so far provided training only to men.
Nomita Das, Lalita Das, Nomita Sarma Bordoloi, Geeta Kumar and Debojani Sonowal Baruah are some of the first-ever batch of women forest guards who had chosen to tread a path walked by men.
“As they will have to do extensive field duty, they will have to be physically fit and so there will be rigorous physical training sessions everyday. In fact, the day will begin as early as 5am with the first of the two-hourlong physical training sessions,” the superintendent of the Assam Forest Guards’ School, Niren Baruah, said. The course will also train the women forest guards in 10 forestry subjects.
Nomita Das, 26, a resident of Bokakhat DFO Colony, had an ardent desire to join the state forest department as her father too was in the department. After her selection, Nomita has been posted as a forest guard under the Eastern Assam Wildlife Division at Kohora under Kaziranga National Park.
“I am excited to be among the 34-member group which is the first women group to undergo such a training course, I am expecting the training sessions to be gruelling and prepared for that,” Nomita who is disturbed by poaching of rhinos and other animals in Kaziranga, said. Her batchmate, Lalita Das, 22, is from Tangla in Udalguri district.
“After I passed my HS in 2007, I was desperate for a job to support my family. One of my relatives guided me in getting this job and I am committed to give my best though I am very much aware that the conditions will be very tough,” she said. Lalita has been posted at Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary.
Nomita Sarma Bordoloi lost her husband in 2003 — the year she got married — and has a six-year-old son. She had been living a hard life till she got the job. She had to leave her son back in Guwahati with her mother. “I know it will be hard, but I will have to do it only because of my son, who will look after him?”
Geeta Kumar, a graduate from Mangaldoi College, had a liking for wildlife and forests since her childhood days.
Niren Baruah said: “We do not think that there will be much of a difference training these women.”
A forest guard at Kaziranga said: “I cannot think of women moving around inside the parks as there are so many risks, but I guess they will come to terms and do well.”
After all, women are there even in the defence forces and doing the country proud.”
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