PG residents in Udupi told to register themselves by August

They have to approach the Women and Child Development Dept.

Hephsiba Rani Korlapati, Deputy Commissioner, said on Wednesday that students and working women living in paying guest accommodations in Udupi district should get themselves registered with the Women and Child Development Department by the end of August.

She was chairing a meeting of the district-level coordination committee of the department at the District Offices Complex here.

Earlier, Gracy Gonsalves, Deputy Director of Women and Child Development, said the repair work of a working women’s hostel was going on in Manipal. Though the hostel had been directed to install CCTV cameras for the safety of women, so far it had not done so.

Ms. Korlapati directed Ms. Gonsalves to give immediate orders to the hostel to install CCTV cameras. She also directed Ms. Gonsalves to visit the hostel and check if it had the basic facilities and submit a report to her.

Ms. Korlapati also directed Ms. Gonsalves to inspect the construction of a working women’s hostel in Katapady. She said that awareness should be created about the women’s helpline number: 181, so that they could use it during emergencies.

The department should submit a report containing details of the calls received by the helpline and the action taken on these calls in the next meeting, she said.

Ms. Korlapati said children who were founding begging should be admitted to schools and steps should be taken to see that they did not return to begging. The school headmasters should be directed to give reports on the attendance of such children to the department.

The Deputy Director of Public Instruction should keep a track on the educational progress of these children by getting information from the schools. When the children caught begging complete a year in the schools, they should be recognised and encouraged in the Children’s Gram Sabhas, she said. In order to prevent child marriage, the age of brides and grooms during mass marriages should be compulsorily checked. Pre-marriage counselling programmes should be held. A workshop would be held for teachers, who have been chosen as nodal officers in order to strengthen the Child Safety Committee, next month, Ms. Korlapati said.