Crunch of space in Dehradun Women’s Helpline is causing inconvenience to the public who came at the helpline centre with their grievances. Statistics revealed that around five or six complaints related to dowry, marital disputes, domestic violence and other family tussles are being reported almost daily by the aggrieved women who came from far-flung areas of the district at Dehradun Women’s Helpline.
The district police is said to have compounded the problems by shifting it to a new place. Those associated with the unit and the women who came here to lodge complaints said in unison that the district police were least bothered to provide basic facilities.
“Even we have nothing to sit on after trudging a long way from home. The state of things is unimaginable,” said a woman who had come all the way from Chakrata to register complaint.
Women’s helpline was shifted from its previous place in SSP office about a month back. It was relocated in a new place in the same premises where Special Investigation Cell that deals with land- related cases is operating in.
Earlier, it had been functioning from another place in the premises. “Things were far better in the previous place. Two reasonably spacious rooms were there. The women complainants had no problem as they had enough space to wait while sitting or standing. Now, in the new place, there is not even space for them to stand when the turnout of the complainants is big,” said an employee of the helpline.
According to an official, two rooms have been given to the helpline in its new place. One is being kept for counseling the complainants and the other is being used to accommodate the staffers and also for keeping documents.
“Things are such that there is hardly any space left for the women complainants to either sit or stand properly. They keep on waiting after a fashion outside till their turns come for counseling before the police officer concerned,” the official said.
The women’s helpline was provided with furniture to enable the women complainants to sit till they meet the officer for registering their complaints. However, such furnitures are not being used by this department because of the space-crunch. “The aggrieved women stand for hours outside the office while waiting for their turns,” the official said, adding that it exposes how hollow the slogan of women empowerment is for those who run the state.
A total of 2013 complaints of such domestic disputes have been reported on the helpline, Dehradun in 2014 while the figure is around 200 till February this year, the helpline in-charge Deepika Rana had said earlier.