Chennai based Reshma Nilofer Naha is India’s first woman marine pilot
Posted on: 26/Sep/2019 10:05:03 AM
Life can never be easy for a marine pilot. If the marine pilot is a female, then life could be extremely difficult.
From travelling to the high sea on a small pilot vessel, disembarking, getting into larger vessels, manoeuvring, navigating and berthing ships in both daytime as well in the nights, from Sagar to Kolkata and Haldia ports through serpentine Hoogly River, Reshma Nilofer Naha has done everything for the last 1 year. This Reshma Nilofer Naha is now India’s first female marine pilot.
It is sensational to mention that Reshma Nilofer Naha has traversed not only strong winds, bad weather and fast-moving channels but also many gender-based barriers. Now, Chennai based Reshma has made her city proud by her achievements. Not for nothing, Nari Shakti Puraskar award for 2018 was given to this sensational Reshma. It is known that this award is the highest civilian award given for recognising the contributions of a woman.
Growing up in a small 600 sqft government quarter’s house in Chennai, Reshma was introduced to rich values, morals and education by her parents who worked for the central government.
This former resident of Anna Nagar, Reshma is currently residing in Kolkata and she works as a pilot for Kolkata Port Trust.
She spoke about how she has been Chennai girl and how she visits Chennai city once a year. It is superb to note that Reshma did not go behind the usual professional courses for her career. She is of the opinion that when we want something with all our heart then the universe would provide that to us.
Point is a newspaper announced about a shipping company offering a tailor-made dual competency programme and this changed her life totally. This first-generation sailor Reshma mentioned about how around 4000 candidates appeared for the talent exam for the 5 years BE Marine Tech programme (a combination of BSc Nautical science and BE marine Technology).
Reshma got to know about the truth that it was a male-dominated industry totally was when she had 5 years of training at AMET University, Kanathur. It is worthy to note that there were 5000 male students with her in the training. She highlighted that her days at AMET University had taught her to tackle pressures of life plus helped her to face challenges and importantly not to get intimidated by men. It is surprising to note that the university had just 5 female students.
It must be noted that as a trainee she went on to sail for 2 years in fleets of different nationalities and later matured as an officer on board ships. Reshma joined Kolkata Port Trust as a pilot trainee and got trained for 6 and a half years before becoming a marine pilot in 2018.
