The Hindu: Mumbai: Thursday, August 18, 2016.
An RTI query has revealed that 32 sexual harassment complaints were registered in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation every year on an average since 2013.
So far, 17 such cases have been registered in 2016. The data was provided by BMC’s Public Information Officer and Administrative Officer Rekha Kale to RTI activist Anil Galgali.
Mr. Galgali said, “The data provided by the Complaints Committee set up for the purpose under the Savitribai Phule Women’s Development Centre exhibits an intolerable level of such complaints. There were 34 complaints in 2013, 32 in 2014 and 31 in 2015. What is alarming is the refusal of the civic body, which claims to have disposed of all complaints registered in the past three years, to provide data on implementation of orders of the vigilance bodies.”
Of these cases, 96 per cent were listed as ‘cleared’, and four cases registered this year were shown as ‘pending’.
Mr. Galgali said, “The PIO has said the names of the complainants, accused and the nature of offence [sexual harassment] is of a confidential nature and sharing them is prohibited under Section 13 of the Working Women’s Sexual Harassment Prevention Act 2013.” He said the Section was being used to protect the culprits.
Mr. Galgali has written to BMC chief Ajoy Mehta asking him to make public the names of the offenders on the BMC website.
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