Ministry of Women and Child Development creating One Stop Centre

PIB News Update: Minister of Women and Child Development, Smriti Zubin Irani has informed that Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yojana (IGMSY) has been discontinued on 31^st March 2017. The One Stop Centre (OSC) Scheme provides a range of services including police facilitation, medical aid, psycho-social counselling, legal counselling and temporary shelter to women affected by violence in an integrated manner under one roof. So far 728 OSCs have been sanctioned and 595 OSCs have started operations. The details of approved OSCs, operational OSCs and funds released to OSCs are given at Annexure-I.

Recognizing the need to prevent women from exploitation and to support their survival and rehabilitation, the scheme of Short Stay Home for women and girls was introduced as a social defence mechanism, by the then Department of Social Welfare in 1969.

The scheme is meant to provide temporary accommodation, maintenance and rehabilitative services to women and girls rendered homeless due to family discord, crime, violence, mental stress, social ostracism or are being forced into prostitution and are in moral danger. Another scheme with the similar objectives namely Swadhar was launched by the Department of Women and Child Development in 2001-02 for women in difficult circumstances. The scheme through the provisions of shelter, food, clothing, counselling, training, clinical and legal aid aims to rehabilitate women in difficult circumstances. Centre for Market Research and Social Development, New Delhi conducted an evaluation in 2007 to assess the performance of both the schemes. The evaluation report while citing the effectiveness and positive impact of measures adopted under the schemes for counselling and rehabilitation found that the profile and category of residents, admission procedure, counselling, quality of service, vocational training, rehabilitation and follow up procedure are almost similar in both the schemes. It, therefore, recommended merger of these two schemes for better functioning and outcomes with lesser administrative burdens and procedures. There were total number of 307 Short Stay Homes and 311 SwadharGrehs functioning in the year 2013-14.

The Guidelines and SOP for the OSCs have been circulated to all the States/ UTs and districts for effective implementation of One Stop Centre (OSC) scheme. Awareness generation programmes related to One Stop Centre scheme are conducted by State Governments/ UT Administrations from time to time.

Annexure-I

State-wise details of approved OSCs, operational OSCs and year-wise release of funds during the year 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19