Times of India: Nagpur: Saturday, December 26, 2015.
After drawing
flak from the Bombay High Court over its half-hearted implementation of the
Manodhairya scheme aimed at providing financial, medical, legal aid, shelter
home facility, rehabilitation and counselling to survivors of rape, child abuse
and acid attack the office of district women and child development said it has
helped more than 145 women and children since the scheme was launched in 2013.
Replying to a
RTI query raised by activist Abhay Kolarkar, the district women and child
development office revealed that it spent around Rs197 lakh between October
2013 and October 2015 to compensate and rehabilitate the survivors.
Sources said
for the first three months of its launch, the state government was not serious
about implementing the scheme as no meetings were convened during the period.
Earlier, the court had directed the government to expedite its efforts towards
publicizing the Manodhairya scheme among survivors as well as the police and
investigating authorities in cases of crimes against women.
According to
statistics provided by the office, the city and district police had submitted
173 cases with the department. Of these, 145 cases were sanctioned under the
scheme, 21 were pending for requisite investigations and seven cases were
rejected.
In the last
two years, a committee headed by district collector had convened as many as 16
meetings. In 2013-14, the department had received 10 cases and all them were
related to minors. In 2014-15, the department dealt with 75 cases of which 46
were related to minors and 29 majors. In 2015-16, as many as 47 cases were
related to minors and 21 were of majors.
However, the
office has admitted that it had not published any advertisement to create
awareness in the district. To a query, the officer stated that a special team
has been formed for providing counselling to the victims. Besides this, in the
near future, the team would also provide hostel facilities for them.
Lawyer Smita
Sarode Singalkar, who is on the seven-member committee, has already started a
Rape Survival Unit to provide assistance to survivors in accessing legal aid
and to create space for them to live with dignity through city-based NGO Sahyog
Trust.
The NGO,
situated at B-2, LAD Apartment, North Ambazari Road, Khare Town, educates rape
survivors, and their families about the legal process. It also tries to remove
fear in the minds of survivors as well as train them on answering questions in
the court during hearing, said Singalkar.
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