Maharashtra government sets up committee to study cases of atrocity against women

The panel, named Women Development Advisory Committee, is headed by Commissioner of Women and Child Development, R Vimala. “The basic idea is to suggest ideas for prevention of crimes against women after discussions with members of the committee,’ said Vimala. The panel will also have six other members who will be legal, counselling, and social experts.

The committee has been given three tasks to be completed in a time-bound manner, said a senior official from the department. It will study and carry out a detailed investigation about crimes, atrocities and fraud against women in the past 12 months in all districts in the state, and also study the reportage of such events in formal and social channels of public media such as newspapers, television reports, and social media coverage. It will study all societal problems faced by women, causes of such atrocities, and find solutions to such problems, and suggest ways to implement policies towards such solutions.

It will conduct meetings as and when required, and a detailed report about its investigation procedure, findings, and solutions will be presented to the WCD department within two months. The members of the committee will not receive any financial gains or stipend during the course of their work, stated the GR.

However, the WCD department is yet to chalk out a plan of investigation, which is likely to include interviewing the survivors, examining the kind of help government agencies provided and the lags in the implementation of already-existing schemes.

This has left social workers perplexed about the efficiency of the committee.

Heramb Kulkarni, a member of the Corona Ekal Mahila Punarvasan Samiti, an NGO that works with Covid widows, said the department already knows about the ineffective execution of schemes, so it should focus on consulting the volunteers who work on the ground.

“There are so many Covid widows who have been facing abuse and are subjected to atrocities by their in-laws. We have already written to WCD department. The issue is that the department always knows about the problems but doesn’t act on them,” he said.