Salaries not paid for months, no support from police: Centres to help women affected by violence struggle

One Stop Centres (OSCs) provide support and assistance to women affected by violence in private and public spaces, within the family, community, and in workplaces.

The condition of OSCs in Delhi was flagged in August in a 2019 petition filed by the NGO Bachpan Bachao Andolan, represented by advocate Prabhsahay Kaur.

It was highlighted that there is a serious issue of underutilisation of the OSCs with the salaries of the employees normally being paid lump sum and not every month.

It was also highlighted that normally no police facilitation officer is deputed at the OSCs and that the Delhi Police is non-cooperative and treats OSCs as a transit shelter.

Notably, as per the details submitted by the Delhi government in a status report on September 21, the 11 OSCs in the national capital had utilised only about 21 per cent of the funds allocated as of August 19 this year.

An amount of Rs 12.19 lakh was allocated to each OSC, with a total allocation of Rs 1.34 crore, for the current financial year of 2024-25.

Expenditures are required to be booked under three components, which are salaries, office expenditure, which includes service to beneficiaries and immediate assistance to victims of rape, and vehicle hiring.

Revenue Department Principal Secretary Ashish Chandra Verma, who was asked to appear before the court earlier in November, submitted before the bench on Tuesday that in the east district of Delhi, salary for such employees has not been paid from November 2023 to March 2024, and in the current financial year, salary payment has been pending from July.

Similarly, employees of the OSC in West Delhi, North Delhi, and South Delhi have not been paid salaries from September 2024, November 2024, and August 2024, respectively.

While Verma reasoned that the non-payment of salaries is owing to non-availability of funds, which is otherwise received from the Union government and disbursed through the Delhi government’s WCD department, the Union government submitted that the Centre’s release of grants to Delhi has been up to date.

The WCD, on the other hand, submitted that while it releases the funds received from the Union government uniformly to the districts, “based on variation in staff, some districts can pay up to date.”

It was further submitted that the Centre releases the next instalment of funds once 87 per cent of the funds released in the earlier instalment are utilised.

It was submitted that so far 74 per cent of the funds have been utilised.

Meanwhile, the Union government informed the court that it has “repeatedly clarified that the funds released by it can be utilised for payment of outstanding salaries for the staff of OSC if there is unspent amount remaining after carrying out expenditures under the head of assistance to victims”.

The bench on Tuesday directed the revenue department to “fix responsibility for non-payment of salaries and take action against delinquent officials in accordance with law”, and file a status report within two weeks.