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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Better-off ladies get hostel gate pass -Ananya Sengupta

Better-off ladies get hostel gate pass -Ananya Sengupta

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published Published on Jun 13, 2015   modified Modified on Jun 13, 2015
-The Telegraph

New Delhi: Working women from the higher-income groups are now eligible to stay at government hostels, with income ceiling for applicants raised from Rs 30,000 a month to Rs 50,000 in urban areas and from Rs 25,000 to Rs 35,000 in rural areas.

But with vacancies hard to come by and an unwritten rule favouring the less well-off between any two applicants, women with higher salaries may have to wait before the new ceilings make a difference on the ground.

Union women and child development minister Maneka Gandhi, whose department runs the hostel scheme for working women, had recently held out hope, though, saying hostels for working women were one of her priorities.

Sunanda Ghosh, who works with a multinational in Delhi, welcomed the move. "Women, including those on the higher pay scales, prefer to stay in a safe place - even if it means tolerating discomfort - rather than rent an apartment in an unfamiliar city and share it with a stranger.

"There's a sense of safety in a government hostel that you can't find elsewhere. After a woman gets comfortable around the city, she can always find other places to stay."

Apart from offering safety in numbers, a government hostel is well guarded and has strict entry rules for visitors. Besides, the rent is cheaper.

Ghosh, for instance, pays 25 per cent of her salary as rent for her Chittaranjan Park flat. At a government hostel, a woman has to pay not more than 15 per cent of her wages for a single-bed room, not more than 10 per cent for a double-bed room and not more than 7.5 per cent for a dormitory berth.

The flipside is that if she gets a raise that lifts her salary over the eligibility ceiling, she has to leave straightaway. Otherwise, she can stay on for three years, after which she is expected to leave unless she can earn an extension citing "exceptional" circumstances.

The Centre, however, has made extensions more difficult to secure. Earlier, the women could apply for a two-year extension but now they can only get a six-month extension at a time. The maximum period of stay remains five years.

Working women who are single, widowed, divorced or separated or whose husbands or immediate family do not live in the same city or area can stay at government hostels, run by the states, trusts or NGOs under a central scheme launched in 1972-1973.

As of January last year, the country had just 911 such hostels with a total capacity of 68,196 - which comes to an average of 75 women per hostel. With women making up 22 per cent of India's workforce, the demand for seats is huge.

The Telegraph, 12 June, 2015, http://www.telegraphindia.com/1150613/jsp/nation/story_25517.jsp#.VXvDFlL38xY


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