New Delhi, There was a time in Mumbai’s Byculla jail when only two buckets of water were allocated to 600 women prisoners for the whole day, while only five sanitary towels were issue per month to every woman, Union Minister for Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi said on Wednesday.
Speaking about the achievements of her ministry in last four years, she said on her order, officials from the ministry visited the prison only to find that the two buckets of water would not have lasted for more than 15 minutes and suitable action was taken.
She also said that a Widow’s Home with a capacity of 1,000 widows was constructed in Vrindavan to provide a safe and secure place for them and will be inaugurated by the month-end.
She also informed that over 1.8 crore calls were received every year since 2014 on the Child Helpline 1098 and the number of locations where the service is operation has gone up from 279 to 435 locations from 2014.
Underscoring the importance of forensics in nabbing the culprits in sexual assault cases, the minister said special forensic kits for rape would be distributed to all the police stations and hospitals by the month of July.
“These kits would contain a complete list of evidence/samples to be collected along with the equipment required to collect the evidence. The kits would be locked and sealed before being sent to forensic labs,” she said.
On the disputes in NRI marriages, the minister said her ministry is in the process of issuing orders to the Registrars that NRI marriages have to be registered within 48 hours else the passport/visas would not be issued.
The Registrars would send the details of such NRI marriages to the ministry so that a Central database can be maintained.
