A One Stop Centre (OSC) meant to give women facing violence immediate access to counselling, legal aid and temporary shelter has been operating without a centre administrator for the past few weeks following a legal dispute over the previous chief’s removal, HT has learnt.
Whenever I asked for bills to be cleared, I didn’t get a response. After my termination, I went to the CAT against the appointment of another administrator and my wrongful termination. CAT then asked to revoke the new hiring. The Union ministry of women and child development’s guidelines envisage round-the-clock services, including counselling, police assistance, legal aid and temporary shelter.
She said the authorities terminated her services in December 2025 without citing any reasons. “I started working at the OSC in 2019 and ran it without any financial aid from the government. A staffer, on the condition of anonymity, said, “A contractual employee who visits once a week gets calls which victims make on the women’s helpline 181. Launched in Delhi in November 2019, the centres are intended to offer coordinated support to women in distress. Chief minister Rekha Gupta earlier this year promised 11 additional centres, one in each district.
The matter is going on now,” she said. Asked about the appointment of a full-time administrator, a senior government official said, “The reason why we are unable to hire a centre administrator is that the matter is sub judice”. She diverts them to the staffers here,” she said without sharing further how they help the women in distress.
The government removed Kusum Lata, the administrator of the centre operating out of Babu Jagjivan Ram Memorial Hospital in Jahangirpuri in December last year and subsequently promoted a case worker to the post.
