Women Helpline receives 1.17 lakh calls in 5 months in Punjab

Chandigarh, Jan 23: The '181 Helpline', started to help

in distress, has received 1.17 lakh calls within five months of its launch in

.

Giving details about the helpline, Additional Director General of Police (ADGP-Security) Dinkar Gupta, said that out of the total 1.17 lakh calls about 38,000 calls were related to various police inquiries and suggestions, and about 54,000 calls were feedback and follow-up calls.

Reviewing the status of the Helpline here, Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal expressed satisfaction that the '181 Scheme' had not only taken off timely, but had also received over one lakh calls. Badal said he had himself checked satisfaction level of a number of complainants, all of whom had praised the service.

The ADGP said over 16,000 complaints were received on the Helpline, which were promptly conveyed to the concerned district police authorities for necessary action and were acted upon in a time bound manner. Gupta said that since the launch of the the service, the satisfaction level of the citizens vis-a-vis police response had shown a steady increase from 70 per cent in September to 73 per cent in October, 74 per cent in November and December 2013 and finally to 78 per cent in January.

He said this helpline had made a significant contribution to the ongoing Punjab Police campaign regarding zero tolerance to crimes against women. The majority of complainants pertained to domestic violence, dowry related harassment, obscene calls/SMS, rape and rape attempt, eve-teasing and sexual harassment.

PTI