Leadership void, ‘mounting arrears’, defunct help desk: The crisis at Delhi Commission for Women

Three dysfunctional helplines. A commission without any nominated members since July. Most workers allegedly without pay since November last year. A nearly 28 percent slash in funding compared to the last financial year. And an institution struggling to process thousands of complaints.

That’s the Delhi Commission for Women, staring at many crises without a chief.

There have been no nominated office-bearers since July 26 this year, when the three-year tenure of its nominated chairperson, member secretary and three members came to an end. No chairperson was appointed after Swati Maliwal stepped down in January following her nomination to the Rajya Sabha. 

This is despite a legal mandate to the Delhi government to nominate the members of the commission, and a September 3 order by the union home ministry allowing the Delhi lieutenant governor too to appoint members to various authorities, including the DCW.

And this is nearly two years after Arvind Kejriwal, as the Delhi chief minister, had hailed DCW as “the perfect example of how a women’s commission should function”. 

The fund crunch, and how the panel functions

The commission, which operates under the Delhi government’s women and child development department, is ostensibly facing a fund crunch.

While the DCW is typically expected to receive funding every three months, it received its first installment for the current fiscal year only in August, Newslaundry has learnt. It was a grant-in-aid of about Rs 5.25 crore, part of the total Rs 25 crore allocated through the Delhi government’s budget for the current fiscal year – down from the Rs 35 crore allocated to the commission last financial year.  

Rs 4.5 crore of the disbursed Rs 5.25 crore was to pay entities that worked for DCW but the amount is still being processed, an administrative officer at the commission claimed.

Apart from around six administrative staff, the commission currently has 567 people employed as contractual, outsourced, and field staff.

While the contractual and outsourced staff assist with processing of complaints, grievance monitoring, and data entry, among other tasks, field staff work with NGOs associated with the commission and on services such as mobile van helplines, programmes under Mahila Panchayat, and counselling through Rape Crisis Cell, among others.

Most of these 567 workers are field staff while 47 are contractual and 37 are outsourced workers. The contractual staff is paid directly, the field staff are paid through NGOs, and the outsourced workers through companies they are hired through.

But many field staffers, who provide DCW services through the 81 NGOs that currently work with the commission, claimed they have not received payment since November last year, and that this has impacted several services.

Newslaundry couldn’t verify the salary status of the outsourced staff, while contractual workers claimed they haven’t been paid since February this year. 

Notably, the financial and administrative authority of the government body rests with the member secretary, among the commission’s elected members, as per a 2016 letter of the Delhi department of women and child development.  

Impact on victims 

The DCW’s key initiatives, including its Rape Crisis Cell, Sahyogini, and Crisis Intervention Cell, have recorded a slump in cases. The RCC or CIC dealt with about 950 cases between March and August this year, against an average of 1,100 cases in the corresponding months last year.   

An employee told Newslaundry that many of these cases are being taken up by NGOs associated with the DCW as it “only requires them to help the victims with counselling, which can be done at the offices of the NGOs”. 

Meanwhile, the number of women assisted through the mobile helpline – that enables workers to immediately rescue or assist women “who are victims of domestic violence and such related forms of atrocities” – have reduced. Between March and August, the commission received 26,046 aid requests, but the workers could only assist 12,549 women.  

The DCW has 23 mobile vans on the ground at present. However, last year’s budget report had advocated a target of 30 mobile vans. Some field staff claimed that reaching the location of the victims at their own expense “is a huge problem. We use our money to reach locations, which is not sustainable.” 

The DCW’s helpdesk number is currently not operational, while the numbers associated with the chairperson and member secretary are also temporarily suspended because their “bills haven’t been paid”, claimed a staff member. Several staff who spoke to Newslaundry claimed that women reach out to them on their personal numbers or visit the office for assistance. The Rape Crisis Cell’s number as well as another DCW number listed on the National Commission of Women’s website are not working.

The 181 round-the-clock helpline, which was under the DCW before it was attached with the women and child development department on July 3, attended around 7,56,147 calls of women seeking help last year. Newslaundry reached out to the Delhi government department for records of calls received since July 3. This report will be updated if a response is received. 

Among the DCW’s other initiatives, mahila panchayats – that deal with “advocacy initiatives, additional community-level grievance redressal mechanism,” and awareness programmes – reported an average of 181 cases every month over the last six months. It had assisted women in 474 such matters during the same time last year.   

81 NGOs work with DCW, but many ‘unpaid’ 

Several NGOs working with the DCW on different initiatives, such as Mahila Panchayat, Rape Crisis Cell, and Mobile Helpline, claimed that they have not received any funds from the commission since November last year. 

Santosh Jha, executive director of Safe Approach, an NGO working with the DCW since 2012, told Newslaundry, “At least 30 members of our NGO are employed for the schemes we run with the DCW. None of them have been paid since November.” 

The contracts of several NGOs have reportedly been extended till December this year, but they have allegedly not received funds to carry out work.

Currently, there are 81 NGOs working with the DWC on various initiatives, although the commission’s FY2024 budget report aimed to rope in at least 272 NGOs to boost the implementation of its programmes. 

Shajeeda Khan, director of Sur Nirman, told Newslaundry that her team of 17 people “have not received salaries since November because they have not received funding from the DCW”. She claimed that in the meantime, the NGO has been carrying out the initiatives through their own funds, while the staff members have also been “using their own money to provide door-to-door help”. The NGO has been associated with DCW since 2001. 

Amit Mishra, president of Saraswati Educational Society, claimed they filed a representation with the DCW member secretary and women and child development department secretary on September 5 regarding the non-payment of funds. “Nearly 70 members of my team are involved in work with DCW, but the shortage of funds is hampering the programmes.”  

While the staff and NGOs claim that salaries have not been disbursed, one of the officials in the DCW administration claimed that “the funds that came in August have not been allocated. It is under process”. 

A 31-year-old staffer, who has been working with the DCW since 2016, said that she was last paid in February and her three-month contract expired in April, but she has continued to work because contract renewal “is just a formality”. 

Similar to the contractual staff, the NGOs said that they have continued to work as they have not been officially sacked and “the higher authorities” have promised funds. 

‘Illegal’ posts and inaction despite HC direction

In May, 44 counselors of the total 69 who worked with the Rape Crisis Cell filed a petition over unpaid salaries and also raised the issue of short-term contracts.

The Delhi high court subsequently ordered the commission to pay the pending salaries by July 3. On the Delhi government’s failure in meeting the deadline, the court instructed it to ensure payment within four weeks, but there was no action again.

The court summoned the DCW’s member secretary in the matter, but the chair is currently vacant. The next hearing in the matter is set to be held on October 1. 

BJP leader and Delhi assembly leader of opposition Vijender Gupta also wrote to Delhi LG Vinai Saxena on August 13, expressing concern and urging action to clear the arrears. The LG directed the commission to address the issue. In the absence of any action, Gupta again raised the issue on August 28, calling it a “livelihood crisis”. 

There was another petition earlier this year. 

On April 29, Delhi LG Vinai Saxena’s office announced that 223 contractual staff of the DCW were sacked. The women and child development department soon clarified that there were 223 “illegally” created posts, but only 52 staff were hired and sacked. The termination came following a report by a committee formed in June 2017.

Of these terminated staff, 48 moved the Delhi high court, which sought a report from the Delhi government.  

These workers were reportedly assured by the department’s secretary and DCW member secretary that they would not be terminated. But with the expiry of the office-bearer’s tenure, they have now been allegedly left in a limbo. 

Maliwal’s tenure and a ‘deliberate attempt’

In a press conference before her resignation as DCW chairperson, Swati Maliwal had said that during her eight-year tenure, she dealt with more than 1.70 lakh complaints. During the same period, more than 2.60 lakh ground visits were made through mobile helpline vans.  

Maliwal’s tenure also saw the commission’s members protest over crimes against women in the national capital. In 2018, Maliwal observed an indefinite hunger strike at Jantar Mantar, demanding the death penalty for rapists within six months of conviction. The protest was prompted by the gang rape and murder of a veterinarian in Hyderabad and the rape of a six-year-old girl in Rajasthan. However, her strike ended in a few days without achieving any significant results.  

In 2022, she was accused of “illegal” staff hiring in the DCW. The Rouse Avenue Court charged her and others for misusing their positions based on an FIR by former DCW chairperson Barkha Shukla Singh, involving 90 “unauthorised” appointments between August 2015 and August 2016. Last week, the Delhi HC rejected her plea to dismiss the corruption charges. 

Meanwhile, Firdos Khan, whose tenure expired as a DCW member in July, claimed there “is a deliberate attempt to dismantle the functioning of the DCW”. She said that during her tenure till July, she wrote several letters to the women and child development department secretary asking for funds, but to no avail. 

Newslaundry reached out to LG Saxena, Delhi women and child development minister Kailash Gahlot, WCD secretary Vinod P Kavle, and DCW DDO Lalit Bhardwaj with queries on the matter. This report will be updated if a response is received.