A homemaker from the minority community, abandoned by her husband, became the first woman to seek help at Palamau’s Sakhi one-stop centre, inaugurated on Wednesday jointly at Chainpur, 3km from here, by MP V.D. Ram and DC Shantanu Kumar Agrahari.
Part of a pan-India central government venture, the one-stop centre intends to support women and girls hit by violence with an integrated range of medical, legal and psychological services. Women and girls who have survived rape, domestic violence, sexual abuse, human trafficking, child abuse, kidnapping, dowry harassment, acid attack, child marriage and cyber crime can approach it. So can working women who face mental or physical harassment at their workplace, said one of the supervisors here, Alka Kumari.
BJP MP Ram said he had urged then DC in 2015, when such centres were first launched in the country, one for every district, to start one in Palamau, but the project had remained grounded. “The present DC (Agrahari) took an interest in this project, so it finally took off,” he said.
DC Agrahari said they selected Chainpur as the site for this centre for many reasons. “This comes under Medininagar corporation, only 3km from the district collectorate. Chainpur block also has 35 panchayats, so coverage is wide. The area has good road connectivity, there is a functional community health centre nearby,” he said.
He added a sub-inspector ranked policeman, Jai Prakash Paswan, had been notified the police officer for this centre, which also had two paralegal volunteers and a psychoanalyst. But, he added this building was temporary and they had identified land at Kund mohalla, 5km away, for this.
But the DC rued they had not received the Nirbhaya fund annually worth Rs 1 crore to run the Sakhi centre. “We have Rs 7 to Rs 8 lakh from another corpus with which we will be running this centre for now.”
Anganwadi sevikas and sahaykas attended the event, organised by Palamau district social welfare department, in good numbers. District department head Sartunjay Kumar said the centre started functioning from the day of its launch. “Sakhi is a 24/7 shelter and services are free for women and girls,” Kumar said.
