The Working Women's Hostel at Rasulgarh in Bhubaneswar. Picture by Ashwinee Pati

Bhubaneswar, April 26: Working women’s hostels are for providing safe and conveniently located accommodation to women. But it has been recently found that some of the state’s working women’s hostels are being put to use for purposes other than accommodation.

At present, eight hostels across the state house 800 working women against the total seat strength of 1,350. Four more hostels are under construction. However, while reviewing the scheme for working women’s hostels by the central government, the state women and child welfare department recently came across several loopholes in the running of these hostels.

The department detected at least four cases where the hostels were being used for purposes other than what it was originally meant for. In most cases, portions of the buildings were being used as government offices.

It was found that a working women’s hostel in Khurda was functioning as the district collectorate office, while another at Bhawanipatna in Kalahandi district had been running as the district telecom office.

Similarly, at Olatpur in Cuttack, a working women’s hostel was being used by the National Institute of Rehabilitation Training and Research (NIRTAR), while in Sambalpur a hostel was being run as district rehabilitation centre.

“Letters have been sent to all the district collectors to ensure that these institutions vacate the buildings,” said a senior official in the women and child development department.

“An increasing number of women are leaving their homes in search of employment in big cities as well as urban and rural industrial clusters. One of the main difficulties faced by such women is lack of safe and conveniently located accommodation,” said social activist Rutuporna Mohanty.

The scheme of grant-in aid for construction of new or expansion of existing buildings for providing hostel facilities was introduced to meet the difficulties faced by such working women.

In another development, considering the increasing demand for these hostels, the state government is planning to plead with the Centre for providing assistance for construction and maintenance of these hostels.

The women and child welfare department has accordingly asked its field staff to give the status of working women’s hostels in the state. The Central funds will be utilised in construction, expansion, and maintenance of these buildings.