Looks like the Railway budget needs to be called the Nirbhaya Fund budget. There is nothing much being doled out by the government for any infrastructure projects, with the exception of installing more bio toilets – courtesy Modi’s Swachch Bharat campaign. The only budgeting of any kind that is happening right now is diversion of funds from the Nirbhaya Fund to promote women’s safety in Railways.
If you stay still and remain quiet long enough, you can probably hear the thunderclap, which is the collective judicial bench of the Delhi High Court slapping their heads in frustration. The court has already pulled up the government for not utilizing the Nirbhaya fund yet last year. Two months ago, despite all the media conversation about it, the Home Ministry of the new government suddenly discovered that the Nirbhaya fund was still on paper and no expenditure had been made from it yet (Surprise Surprise!) And so after announcing Rs.200 crore to be set aside for victim compensation, looks like Mr Jaitley has diverted some more of the Nirbhaya fund – to install surveillance cameras in select trains.
“Indian Railways would utilise resources from the Nirbhaya Fund for augmenting security of women passengers… For the safety of women passengers, surveillance cameras will be provided on a pilot basis in selected mainline coaches and ladies’ compartments of suburban coaches without compromising on privacy,” said Railway minister, Suresh Prabhu.
Now the camera proposal looks just fine and dandy on paper. It’s supposed to serve as a deterrent to criminals. But how does it exactly work? Will it be monitored 24/7 and 365 days in a year? What happens when the camera catches a woman getting assaulted or molested or even raped? What will the reaction time be? Will they be able to raise alarm immediately and send personnel to rescue the woman? More importantly, can it prevent the crime or will it only serve as evidence after the episode, during a court trial?
Putting up surveillance cameras would only work if it was done along with increasing the number of rail personnel patrolling the trains. But that is not being done. As such, there is no guarantee that the camera footage will not be misused by the people monitoring it. At this rate, it seems women are better off going the old-fashioned way -appealing to co-passengers for help.
An added safety measure that the Railways would be implementing is installing a helpline number -138 to attend to passenger problems on a real-time basis. But everybody, including those who have never dialed a helpline number before, know how well they work. Many of the government-run helplines are ill-maintained and stop functioning after a while. Besides, the whole idea that any time an issue comes up, the government sets up a helpline for it, has been around for donkey’s ages. It’s time to think out of the box.
Now there was some talk before budget of empowering railway police to file FIRs. That’s a start in the right direction. But since it involves an amendment to the RPF Act, 1957, this measure is not likely to get rolled out soon. A more prudent measure would be to install alarm systems to go with the surveillance cameras. So the victims can themselves raise alarm. If well maintained, this system can act as a good deterrent for any crimes on board trains, right from petty thefts to assaults and sex crimes. Best part is it can work efficiently even with existing number of security personnel on board trains.
Another measure that Suresh Prabhu has promised is reservation of middle berth in three-tier coaches for women and senior citizens. There is something undoubtedly sexist about the logic behind this move, possibly that women can’t climb upper berths. Also, it is not well-thought out and doesn’t help anybody. For starters, many of older women who can’t climb the ladder up to their berths have trouble climbing up to middle berths too and would undoubtedly prefer the lower berths. This is probably true for 80% of women over the age of forty.
The younger girls, who by the way, can climb the ladder to upper berths would actually prefer the safety of upper berths. Anybody who has travelled by train would know that the passenger lying on the middle berth is most visible to any stranger passing by the aisle. Also since the middle berth is exactly at chest or waist level for most men, it makes it easier for them to touch women or simply let their hands wander unobtrusively and there HAVE BEEN many such episodes. So not only is middle berth reservation a bad idea, it is undoubtedly lip service for what seems to everybody like a budget centered on women. In reality, if we consider what women can genuinely take away from this budget – it’s NOTHING.
In fact, the best news from this budget is actually the announcement that ladders are to be replaced in all coaches. Now everybody can climb up to the upper berths! Yayy!
Image Courtesy: Reuters, BCCl
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