Indore : Its 12:30 PM, a lady operator of 1091 Helpline number in Mahila Thana is sitting next to the only landline available in the room. Gazing out from the window this operator waits for a call to provide her services but her efforts goes in vain as 90% of the calls received by 1091, the district women helpline number are not from the district.
On the condition of anonymity one of the operators of 1091 helpline number of Indore said, “I rarely get any calls for help from Indore. Majority of callers are from different part of the state but not form Indore. This makes us helpless in providing any assistance to the caller.”
An alarming need for women helpline number which came into limelight post the Nirbhaya rape case made the government to launch 1090 as a toll free number to assist female callers in any case of help.
Apart from the 1090 helpline number which runs in the state capital Madhya Pradesh government culminated state run ‘Usha Kiran Yojna’ under its banner and started with 1091 helpline number for every district.
But, the amalgamation doesn’t seems to be observing any good for the women in the city as common helpline number for every district is leading to more chaos than real time solutions.
Under Usha Kiran Yojna every Police station in the city has a women desk with three women counsellors who provide their services to every women walking to the doorstep of Mahila Thana.
“Any woman who walks into a police station gets assistance from us. We give her all the possible help and follow her case over phone but not as of now 1091 leads just to confusion and nothing else.” added the operator of 1091 helpline number.
Since, June 2013 every district of the state is operational with 1091. Women counsellors who were earlier working under the Usha Kiran Yojna were incorporated under the ‘Swadhar Mahila Helpline’ administrated by the Central government.
1091 receives 2-3 calls per day on an average with hardly any call from Indore. Operators have no choice but to let go the callers without any help. The biggest irony about these helpline operators is the communication gap.
Operators do not have any communication with the helpline numbers running in the state capital or in other district of the state. The biggest irony that came across Free Press while working on the issue was that the operators were unaware about the state helpline number, 1090.
The majority of callers dialling on 1091 are cyber related issues where girls complain of lewd and abusive calls and messages. The solution given to such callers are to change the sim card.
Such lame solutions provided by the operators have let the girls of the city to switch for some other solution but avoid helpline numbers.
