Cyberabad Police Commissioner Sandeep Shandilya, Joint CP Stephen Ravindra and DCP Madhapur Vishwa Prasad conducted a review meeting with all the owners / organizers of women’s hostels / PG hostels for working women, situated in Madhapur, Gachibowli and Rayadurgam.
As large no of women migrate to Hyderabad IT corridor and employed in the industry, to enhance the safety features in the women’s hostels, to ascertain the safety features provided in the hostels, launched a project called Project Safestay. Police team did a detailed analysis of these hostels and based on their observations, an year back, Cyberabad Police Commissioner has issued certain guidelines to all these hostels earlier asking them to comply with 10 Safety features they must follow for safety of the inmates – They are called 10 Security Commandments.
Under Project Safestay, after one year of issuing guidelines, now with the help of student volunteers from Roda Mistri College of Social Welfare, Police department, SCSC Women’s forum has conducted an audit of all these 197 hostels to verify the progress made after the guidelines were issued and report prepared.
Speaking on the occasion, Sandeep Shandilya said with this audit, Cyberabad police have full status of the implementation of the guidelines and he said, now onwards the department with the help of SCSC would conduct audit of these hostels once in 6 months and keep updating the status of the hostels, on the implementation of the 10 commandments, on Cyberabad Police Commissioner’s website and also on SCSC’s website. It is for the inmates and other women who look for a choice of hostels, refer the website and make their choice of hostel. He also said that these are minimum security features they must have in their hostels, and hostels have a choice of creating more safety features.
On the occasion, the Commissioner also released the, 10 commandments poster to all the owners / organizers of the PG working women’s hostels and it is mandatory for them to display the posters in their front office. These ten security commandments are – regarding the compound wall height, CCTVs at entry & Exit points, gates, 24X7 security guards, maintenance of ID proofs of hostel employees and inmates, fire extinguishers, visitors register, complaint box, first aid kit, individual lockers etc.
Ranjani Vijayaraghavan, an IT employee and who has spearheaded the Pilot of Project Safestay, from SCSC’s women’s forum, said, “with this exercise, women can take an informed decision about choosing a safe hostel. This will be a reassuring for the near and dear ones of the women employees who are now working in IT corridor. With the success of the Project Safestay Pilot, more areas would be covered and the list of hostels complying would be updated on an ongoing basis on SCSC’s website and Police website”. (INN)