Post news network
Bhubaneswar, Nov 18: The state government Wednesday decided to launch a one-stop solution helpline, 181, to help women in distress and connect the facility to hospitals, one-stop centres and police. The move comes almost two years after the state government announced that it will launch a call-centre service for women.
The state women and child welfare department has moved in this direction by publishing an expression of interest from interested agencies for implementation, management and technology partnership for the helpline.
The modalities will be finalised after consultation with the agencies, the officials said. “We have asked agencies to present their proposals. The modalities will be finialised in accordance with our discussions with them. The scheme envisions a call centre for police and other services for women,” said Subhra Mohanty, deputy secretary, state women and child welfare department.
The Centre had in August sanctioned a corpus of Rs 28,86,000 to the Orissa government for establishing the helpline. The state government has asked interested parties to prepare presentations on the services.
Under the project, the agency in addition to any other service to be provided under the government of India scheme, will be required to run a helpline through a toll-free 24-hour telecom service for emergency response to women affected by violence, provide information about women-related government schemes and programmes and a range of services, including medical, legal, psychological and counselling support. Currently, the various helplines in India are divided by the nature of support sought – police, fire services, ambulance, legal aid or counseling – and by geography (city and state).
One of the features proposed for the helpline is the ability to automatically trace the caller’s location and send emergency help, on the lines of western countries.
