Most police stations in MP do not have toilets for women
More than half of all the police stations in Madhya Pradesh don’t have separate toilets for women, a fact which the high court in Jabalpur has taken cognisance of and issued notices to the home secretary, DGP and others and given them four weeks time to reply.
The notice came from chief justice Hemant Gupta and justice VK Shukla on Thursday, following a public interest litigation filed by Amitabh Gupta highlighting the situation.
In the petition, Gupta has pointed out that women cops face a lot of difficulties as they have to share toilets with the men, which is both embarrassing and unhygienic. Not having separate toilets is a violation of the fundamental right, the petition reads.
Chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had at a collector’s conference in October last year directed all police stations to have separate toilets, relaxing areas and counselling rooms for women constables and visitors.
The Director General of Police, Rishi Kumar Shukla, too, is aware of the situation and admitted it at a meeting of officials held recently in Bhopal.
Additional director general of police (Planning) Pawan Jain accepted that nearly half of all the police stations do not have separate toilets for women. Talking total police force
BHOPAL:
police stations in the state
police stations have separate toilets
police stations do not have separate toilets to HT he said, “There are 1,061 police stations in Madhya Pradesh and of them 676 do not have a separate toilet for women,” he said. But he was quick to defend his department.
Jain said the police housing corporation, which caters to construction work of the police department, had sent a proposal of ₹49 crore to the finance department for construction of toilets, counselling or relaxing area for women cops and visitors in May 2017. “The proposal is pending with the department for the past six months,” Jain said. He also said that in many police stations, there are separate toilets, but either they are not functioning or have been put to other use.
Police officials say that MP is one of the few states in the country that has taken a policy decision to have 33% reservation for women in police department.