5-6 crisis centres to help women in distress every month: Maneka Gandhi

New Delhi, Mar 6: The Women and Child Development Ministry has decided to launch 5-6 One Stop Crisis Centres every month to help women victims of violence.

Three such centres will be launched on International Women's Day on March 8, Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi said. There are six such centres in the country.

"The One Stop Centres for providing safety to women affected by violence will be significantly expanded this year. We are launching three more One Stop Crisis Centres in Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. Foundation stone will also be laid in Nagaland," Gandhi said.

"We will come up with five to six centres every month this year," she said.

Currently six One Stop Centres are functional in Raipur (Chhattisgarh), Vijayawada City (Andhra Pradesh), Karnal (Haryana), Bhubaneswar (Odisha), Jaipur (Rajasthan) and Chandigarh.

The ministry has also released funds to more than 30 states for building the facility. Initially, these centres were proposed to be established at 660 locations covering all the districts across the country.

After receiving feedback from public and stakeholders and inter-ministerial consultations, it was decided to build them in a phased manner.

"The scheme envisages establishment of one centre in each State/UT in the first phase and further expansion depends upon the performance of these centres," a senior ministry official said.

"The centres are at the nascent stage of operationalization at the field level. The One Stop Centre Scheme is being monitored by the Ministry on a regular basis," the official said.

The centres will extend medical help, counselling, legal and police assistance to women in distress, while ensuring anonymity of the victim.

The facility was one of the key recommendations of Justice J S Verma committee that was set up in the aftermath of the public uproar against the December 16 gangrape in Delhi.

PTI