HT Digital
GUWAHATI, March 14: Indian billionaire businessman, and the chairman of Mahindra Group Anand Mahindra Mahindra praised Indian Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw for the transgender tea stall initiative. Taking to his Twitter handle, he stated that this initiative is “significant & transformational” just like several other progressive projects. Indian Railways carries around 8 billion people without excluding anyone.
India’s first tea stall run by transgender people has been set up at Guwahati Railway Station in Assam and the step has impressed the industrialist.
The tea stall will be run completely by transgender people and it has turned out to be the first of its kind in India. The stall, set up in collaboration with the All Assam Transgender Association, was inaugurated by Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) general manager Anshul Gupta on March 10.
The association’s vice president Swati Bidhan Baruah lauded the NFR’s initiative as a recognition of society’s responsibility to the welfare of the transgender community and the need for them to be financially secure. She further said that transgender people often face harassment and invariably do not get jobs, instead they are forced to beg in trains, railway stations, and other public places while digesting insults. “The NFR has taken an initiative to give them dignity,” she added.
