Shillong, Oct 14: Meghalaya government is seeking Rs 600 crore financial support from the Centre for strengthening and improving the overall functioning of social welfare department.
Informing this on Monday, minister in-charge social welfare department Paul Lyngdoh said that he has reviewed the functioning and funding position of the directorate and the interventions, which is required to be taken by the state.
“Certain matters will also have to be taken to the cabinet, certain matters will also have to be taken to the five ministries dealing with our department here in Meghalaya,” he said.
“The additional interventions would include more funding from the ministry. We have projected a deficit of about Rs 600 crore. There is also need for us to improve the service conditions of the employees here. A lot of them are working on a contractual basis and it’s a lot of hard work. They have to stay over, those who are in the night shift. So things like that. We will try to enhance facilities for them so that they would be able to optimise the services that we can offer,” Lyngdoh added.
The minister also reviewed the functioning of the women and child helplines at the office of the directorate of social welfare.
“As you can see for yourself, we have highly tech savvy young boys and girls handling cases on a daily basis, cases of complaints for both child helpline and women helpline are done round the clock with three personnel manning for 8 hours shift continuously and there is also space for the distress callers whether children or women to even get accommodation, when calls come in the middle of the night, they have to be picked up by women helpers, women police because we make sure that the male police do not handle such cases because of the sensitivity of the matters,” he said.
“I am also happy to see that the success rate like in the child helpline cell. I noticed that the success rate is about 90% cases have been resolved and also that the information from various districts are updated round the clock in the dashboard and this information will also now be integrated with my office in the secretariat so that the information keeps flowing minute by minute,” Lyngdoh added
Emphasizing that not everything that is happening in Meghalaya is negative, the minister said, “There is a lot of positivity. There is a lot of highly motivated young men and women, working tirelessly to serve the society and its an incredible story when we hear that women facing domestic violence, for instance get immediate attention and support, our intervention as department.”
Asked, the minister said, “We will need to further strengthen the department, ensure that where cases take longer than they should take, those will be corrected and once we integrated their information system with the secretariat, I will be in a position to see the data flowing on a daily and we can then take corrective measures in such cases.”
