Chak De Phatte!

Tackling a challenging life situation led to Neelkamal Thakur earning her new designation—the first female truck driver from Himachal to operate a commercial heavy load carrier

- Ashwani Sharma

It was getting dark. Neelkamal Thakur, then 34, had a choice to make. The regular driver, after helping with the loading of the truck—registered under her name—abruptly refused to drive it to the desired location. It had happened before. This time, there was a deadline to meet. What Thakur did that evening changed the track of her life.

She decided to drive the cement-loaded truck from UltraTech’s plant in Baga in Solan district of Himachal Pradesh and safely deliver the consignment 102 km away to a location in the industrial belt of Nalagarh. She was nervous at first because covering such a long route at night on treacherous Himachal roads is quite a task—especially because the drive involved an uphill climb, followed by a long stretch downhill.

Providing her moral support was her teenaged nephew, Pankaj. They set off. The year was 2016. It was the erstwhile Manali-Chandigarh highway, unlike the four-lane highway now. “For a solo female heavy truck driver on her first trip, it was a dangerous route. But something inside me told me to go ahead. I don’t have words to express that feeling,” says Thakur.

She had no clear idea as to how brake pressure is applied in heavy vehicles. All she had driven until then was a small car that her family owned. It was all about trial and error. “At a particular check-point uphill, the vehicle started rolling back. I told Pankaj to quickly get down and place a stone at the rear wheel. It was dark and he was young, but he bravely supported me,” she recalls.

The journey became a milestone of her life and she earned a new designation—the first female truck driver from Himachal to operate a commercial heavy load carrier.