A Cold Shoulder: The Collapse of Government Help Centres Meant to Protect Women

The first day of August at the Delhi High Court was business as usual, with advocates and their interns bustling through the well-lit complex in central Delhi.

Inside Courtroom 1, critical matters came up and ebbed, seemingly routine.  

Around 1 pm, acting Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela took stock of the Delhi government’s implementation of the One Stop Centre (OSC) scheme, a crucial women’s safety initiative.

Launched in April 2015, the OSC scheme was designed to provide emergency shelter, police and medico-legal assistance to women in distress, especially those facing harassment and violence. It was one of several initiatives rolled out after the 2012 Nirbhaya gangrape and murder which shook the nation.

The Nirbhaya case forced governments to think about women’s safety. A slew of schemes were launched to ensure women get support to fight violence and abuse. In this three-part series, The Reporters’ Collective analyses critical schemes to protect women. In the first part, we examine the implementation of the OSC scheme. 

We accessed exclusive government records and travelled across two states – Delhi and Haryana – to find that even after a decade these schemes, launched as initial steps, have failed to deliver on their promise of a safe and secure space for women.

Back in the Delhi High Court, the judges weren’t pleased with the state of OSCs in Delhi. On 15 July, the court had asked both the petitioner and state’s counsels to inspect the centres in the capital and file a report.

Prabhsahay Kaur, counsel for the petitioner Bachpan Bachao Andolan, a Delhi-based child rights NGO, told the court that their inspection of 11 OSCs found “serious issue of underutilisation” of OSCs, salary delays for staff and importantly, “no Police Facilitation Officer” on-site.

Kaur highlighted that Delhi police, with a dismal record of prosecuting perpetrators, were generally “non-cooperative” and treated these centres as “transit shelters,” a fact noted down in the court order.

Delhi government’s counsel Udit Malik accepted the allegations, acknowledging the centres’ dysfunction. Malik had inspected the OSCs along with Kaur.

Despite the court’s displeasure with the scheme, the disappointment barely registered outside the courtroom. The issue just faded into bureaucratic weariness. It was, after all, business as usual inside the court complex.

This wasn’t the first time OSC failures had been brought to light. Issues of underutilisation of funds have been repeatedly raised in Parliament, its Standing Committees, and even in the government’s own evaluation.

Yet, little has changed.

The Collective dug out undisclosed official records and a 2021 NITI Aayog study, which has been kept out of public domain,  to reveal how the Union government has manipulated facts and presented half-truths to cover up the OSC scheme’s failures.

The OSC scheme for women suffers even as the Union and states continue to pass responsibility to each other. Internal records of the Ministry of Women and Child Development show chronic delays in the Union government’s funding to states for running OSCs, even after the government told Parliament that it had ironed out these issues.

On the ground, states have their own share of flaws. Consequently, the scheme is marred by poor awareness and official apathy.

The Union government’s attempt to paint a rosy picture hides a landscape of unmet pledges and institutional failures. The study by the government’s official think tank NITI Aayog on women’s safety schemes, which the Collective has accessed, is revealing:

The Aayog concluded this about the OSC Scheme:

• Awareness of the scheme among primary respondents was just around 4%.
• Only 20% of the funds released under the scheme have been
  utilised.
• There is a serious lack of data on the quality of services and beneficiary feedback.
• No grievance redressal mechanism for beneficiaries to record
  complaints or feedback.

But, ironically, the government used the report that had castigated the governments for failure to instead justify its record. It did so by keeping the original report hidden from the citizens.

The study found low awareness, poor fund utilisation, and inadequate staff salary provisions – all in line with what the Delhi High Court found in its inspection.

While the government used it to claim the effectiveness of these schemes, the study was never made public.

All of this unfolds as crimes against women continue to rise.

The latest National Crime Records Bureau data shows a grim picture. Overall, from 2012 to 2022, the rate of crimes against women increased from 41.7 to 66.4 per lakh women. In 2022 alone, 31,912 women were raped, 250 of whom were also murdered. The same year 6,516 women were killed for dowry, and 1,40,019 cases of cruelty by husbands or in-laws were registered.

The official data, however, captures only a fraction of cases that make it to the records, for many more cases in the country go unreported.

We met several such survivors of gender and sexual violence across Delhi and Haryana who shared their experiences of navigating government redressal systems.

They complain of encountering insensitivity at every step, be it while dealing with their OSC staff or the police, who often force these women to either settle or go back to their abusers, leaving them to take their battles elsewhere.

In Haryana’s Nuh, one of India’s most backward districts, for instance, a man is in charge of the OSC, despite government guidelines mandating that women should head these centres. The presence of local men, the women in Nuh told us, discourages them from talking freely and hinders their access to justice.

We sent detailed queries to the Union and the two state governments. While we have not heard from the Women and Child Development ministry, the Delhi government has only forwarded our queries to state officials.

Despite repeated reminders, the Haryana government did not respond to specific and detailed queries. Instead, it demanded that the journalist seek an appointment to meet unnamed and unspecified ‘higher authorities’ of the state government.

State of First Response

A One Stop Centre (OSC) is meant to provide various essential services for women in distress under one roof, so they don’t have to navigate multiple government offices to get help or seek justice. It can be a standalone building like in Haryana’s Nuh, inside a district office or a hospital in south Delhi.

Ideally, an OSC should have a centre administrator as the first point of contact for a woman in distress, a case worker, a police facilitation officer to help file FIRs, legal and psycho-social counsellors, a paramedic, IT staff, security guards and a multi-purpose helper.

It should also be a safe space which offers temporary shelter for up to five days to girls of all ages, women and their children, including boys under 12.

The scheme is entirely funded by the Union government’s Nirbhaya Fund, set up as a response to the 2012 Nirbhaya case, with states responsible for implementing it. At present 786 OSCs are operational across the country, and Rs 853.78 crore has gone to states and Union Territories since the scheme’s inception.

However, since the launch of Mission Shakti in 2022, which merged several women’s safety initiatives, including OSCs, women helpline and the much-touted scheme Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao, the government stopped giving detailed budget breakdowns.

The Union’s expenditure on the combined women’s safety component of Mission Shakti fell short, with only 31.2%, 34.7% and 82.2% of the promised budget spent in FY 2021-22, 2022-23 and 2023-24, respectively. For FY 2023-24, revised estimates have been used.

The NITI Aayog evaluation highlighted that only about 20% of the allocated funds for the OSC scheme were used. The main reason for this underspending was the low number of centres constructed, the study observed.

The Union government often blames states for delays in Utilisation Certificates (UCs) and Statement of Expenditures, which show actual expenses and are required for releasing the next tranche of funds.

In December 2023, the Women and Child Ministry told a Parliamentary Standing Committee that it had fixed the issue by streamlining the fund flow. Initially, funds were sent directly to districts, but since 2022, they got routed through states’ Single Nodal Accounts under Mission Shakti. The states/UTs were then responsible for transferring funds further to OSCs and monitoring the implementation of the schemes. A dedicated portal was also created for states and UTs to send their expenditure certificates.

Even after these changes, exclusive documents reveal, the Union continued to delay funding, while it kept insisting that all checks were in place.

How the government misleads

Delays in funding and non-payment of salaries to OSC staff were raised in the Delhi High Court in December 2023. At that time, the Delhi government’s counsel assured the court that salaries would be paid within a week.

By the next hearing on 15 July 2024, the Union reported it had released Rs 1.05 crore as grant-in-aid to Delhi under the OSC scheme for FY 2024-25, shifting responsibility to the state government.

But the ministry's undisclosed documents accessed by The Collective reveal the Union government released funds just five days before the hearing.

On 10 July 2024, a ministry official noted in an internal correspondence that “since no fund has been released so far this year,” state and OSC staff “are repeatedly calling and pressing us hard to release funds to clear salaries, liabilities”. Another internal ministry note confirmed that the Delhi government was consistently following up on the matter.

Delhi’s 11 OSCs have supported 18,490 women as of September 2024. Yet, the number of women supported remains low. In 2022 alone, 14,247 crimes against women were recorded in the capital.

The ministry also acknowledged improved fund utilisation in its internal correspondence, noting that the “unspent balance in the OSC’s SNA [nodal accounts] has come down below 12.5% of its annual requirement.”

But even then the Union delayed funding to the states. This was despite telling the Parliament Standing Committee over six months earlier that funding problems had been resolved.

One OSC worker in Delhi shared that they often went unpaid for months, sometimes covering expenses of the centre out of their own pocket.

“We’re here to support others, but we’ve become victims ourselves. Why do we not get salaries on time, it’s our right,” the staff member said, adding, “As contractual workers, we are not taken seriously by authorities like the police”.

In the end, these systemic failures hit hardest when women need support the most.

It’s a man’s world

Two hours south of India’s Parliament, where all the big promises are made, lies Nuh, a slow and sombre town in Haryana’s Mewat region.

When The Collective visited Nuh in August, the street leading to Bibi’s* house was waterlogged, filled with mosquito-infested, algae-covered water. Women and children walked through it to cross the stretch.

But we were not there for the streets – we came to talk to Bibi.

Four years ago, Bibi’s husband poured kerosene on her in an attempt to kill her. Before that, he regularly beat and harassed her for dowry. The violence worsened after she gave birth to a girl in 2010. Before the murder attempt, she sought help from Nuh’s only One Stop Centre and the district’s Mahila Thana, an all-women police station, but she says she received none.

“They promised to file a compensation case in court but when I went to the court for information, I found nothing. They had lied to me,” Bibi recalled.

Her husband could have been stopped. It was within a year after her complaint that he tried to kill her. Today, she is fighting a domestic violence case against him with the help of a private lawyer.

We spoke to several domestic violence survivors in Nuh. Most had gone to the OSC but were not helped in prosecuting their abusers. Some were even encouraged to return to their abusive homes. None knew about the OSC’s services until they heard of it through Radio Mewat, a community radio station. The local community station was started in Nuh in 2010 and has worked to spread awareness about social issues and government schemes.

“A man has run Nuh’s One Stop Centre since the beginning. Women in distress don’t feel comfortable opening up to a man about their problems,” said Jiya*, a local resident. “A man mostly thinks of a compromise, or wants that a case isn’t filed, because he has a man’s perspective.”

At least ten people we interviewed in Nuh expressed shock that a man was in charge of an OSC.

According to 2017 OSC guidelines, the “Centre Administrator would be a woman with requisite qualification.” Putting a man in charge of a centre, like in Nuh, goes against the Union’s norms.

When asked about the issue, OSC in-charge Mohd Ashfak Ali defended his position. “The centre has a female psycho-social counsellor who deals with women and listens to their problems. We also have two female constables stationed here,” he said. However, during our visit, we did not spot any female constables there.

“We have assisted 1,205 women so far, and we try to solve issues among families, some complaints are just family disputes. But if the case is grave, we do not try to settle it,” Ashfak added.

In total, Haryana has 22 OSCs that have assisted 42,286 women as of June 2024.

The centre’s psycho-social counsellor, Ferkhunda Khanum, explained that most women don’t want to file cases. They just want someone to talk to their husbands and give warnings. Since most women are not financially independent, they don’t want to leave their matrimonial families, she claimed.

The OSC staff described their frustrations.“We try our best to assist women but we fail because we lack authority. We don’t have power to dictate police or send summons or notices to those who commit crimes. Police mostly delay proceedings,” said Khanum.

This police apathy toward women is a challenge faced by survivors, OSC staff, and social workers alike.

Not much has changed

In south Delhi’s Hauz Rani, 30-year-old Pooja*, a domestic worker, lives with her husband and 10-year-old son. Her husband regularly drinks and beats her.

Pooja went to the police on several occasions, but they dismissed her complaints. “They told me that without a marriage certificate, no case can be registered. They told me to go to family court for compensation, but only if my husband agreed to register the marriage first. They never informed me about the OSC or any other assistance I could get,” she said.

Pooja’s husband refused to register the marriage. In 2019, the local police briefly counselled them and then closed the complaint asking her to approach the family court.

“I gave up. Now, whenever I threaten my husband that I will go to the police if he troubles me, he laughs it off. There is no fear,” Pooja told us.

Many women survivors we interviewed echoed this, saying the lack of firm action by police or OSCs only emboldened their abusers.

In the Delhi High Court case, advocate Prabhsahay Kaur highlighted that OSC’s in Delhi did not have Police Facilitation Officers to assist women in police proceedings. She also pointed out that “no prosecution was happening” at OSCs.

“There is no awareness about One Stop Centres. Police or hospitals refer minor girls to OSCs mostly. No POSCO victims (minors who face sexual abuse) approach OSCs directly, which was the main purpose of the scheme,” Kaur told The Collective. “People are hesitant to go to the police. And they should know they don’t have to go to the police, they can directly go to the OSC.”

The 2021 NITI Aayog study raised the same issue, claiming that awareness of OSCs was “extremely low at just around 4%” due to a lack of activities to popularise the scheme.  In Delhi, only 0.8% of respondents knew the scheme existed.

Not much has changed since then.

It is not only awareness issues that plague the OSC scheme, accountability and transparency concerns have also been raised.

A 2019 report on five states by LLN (Lam-lynti Chittara Neralu), a pan-India network of NGOs supporting women survivors of violence, highlighted a lack of accountability in government shelters. It said that its researchers “faced much resistance” from shelter staff, and “survivors could not always speak freely” due to a lack of privacy during interviews.

Two years later, the NITI Aayog study echoed these concerns. The study said it could not assess the scheme’s quality and efficiency because there was no data or a “monitoring mechanism to capture beneficiary feedback and quality of services of the OSC”.

Even today, detailed data on the scheme remains hidden from public scrutiny. While the number of operational OSCs and assisted women is made public, there is no information about the kind and quality of assistance provided.

“Access to understand the functioning of One Stop Centres is very difficult,” said Kaur. “It was only after the court order to submit a report on Delhi’s OSCs that we were able to inspect them.”

Our attempts to access several OSCs in Delhi or seek interviews with their staff were met with plain refusal.

In August, Pooja visited the nearby OSC inside the Madan Mohan Malviya Hospital to seek help to keep her abusive husband away. She was told to move out of her current house and go to the police.

“I have already gone to the police before, it was of no use,” she said after returning from the centre.

The OSC staff did not offer to accompany her to the police station. She was told her case would now go to court and she should return the next Monday to meet lawyers.

The purpose of OSC is to create a support system that comes to the help of women in distress, to be by their side and to be able to understand the kind of support they need. In many cases, survivors don’t want to get involved in police or court proceedings. Pooja, too, needed someone to confront her husband for her.

“I don’t have the time,” Pooja told us, deciding not to return to the OSC. “What is their use if they can’t help me?”

‍*names have been changed to protect the identities of the individuals mentioned in the story.‍

[This investigation is partially supported by the Appan Menon Memorial Trust Award to The Reporters' Collective.]