New Delhi, August 27
Envisaged after the infamous Nirbhaya incident, the much-needed rape crisis centre dedicated to the rape victims is all set to be launched by the Delhi government at Sanjay Gandhi Memorial Hospital in Mangolpuri, which faces high frequency of such patients.

The 24x7 crisis centre for rape victims will facilitate the victim from the first level of medical treatment to evidence collection. "It will provide facilities likes registering of First Information Report, medical treatment, counselling, legal support, evidence collection on the basis of forensic proof, etc.," said the senior health department official.

A team of doctors will be available around-the-clock to look after such patients. The centre will also have a councillor for emotional comforting of the traumatised victims. "The centre has been built with special features keeping in mind every meticulous detail required to deal with such sensitive cases. It has been given colourful look to sooth the mind of the victim," the official said.

At present, there is no such dedicated facility for rape victims in the hospitals and they forced to wait in queues of the OPD. "The victims face tough time going through medical checkups due to lack of facilities and insensitivity of the hospital staff.

One such centre will be opened in every district, the official added.

The rape crisis centre, will, however, be called as "One-stop Centre". "We do not want people to see every girl coming to the centre with suspicious eyes. Hence, it will be called as 'One-stop Centre' to make it look like any other department," he said.

Rape crisis centre was proposed to be built in every district of the city in the Union Budget presented by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. I

t was also one of the main recommendations of the report of the Usha Mehra Commission set up following the Nirbhaya case in December 2012.

New Delhi, August 27
The Department of Food Supplies and Consumer Affairs has completed the exercise of identification of eligible households under the National Food Security Act, 2013, to receive the food security in Delhi.

After scrutiny and field verification, 18 lakhs households have been found eligible for receiving food subsidy.

The department had received applications from 21 lakhs households under the act. Commissioner (Food and Supplies) S.S. Yadav said digitization scrutiny of these applications and field verification of each household has been completed.

"For this, more than 1,500 people were deployed by the department. The work had to be suspended twice for two months each due to elections to the Legislative Assembly of Delhi and subsequently elections to the Lok Sabha," he said.

The details of the applicants were compared with the data of power connections, property ownership, government employees and vehicle ownership to rule out ineligible households. Thereafter, field verification was taken up.

The department has digitized the data of all these households and a computerized system has been put in place for allocation of foodgrains every month to these households through 2,400 fair price shops in Delhi. As per the provisions of the act the eligible households will receive foodgrains at highly subsidized rates of Rs 2 per kg for wheat and Rs 3 per kg for rice.

Out of 18 lakhs eligible households, nine lakhs households have already started getting benefit of food security. In case of remaining nine lakhs households, the new ration cards will be issued and benefit will be provided to them over next two-three months.

New Delhi, August 27
The Delhi Jal Board (DJB) today claimed to have exceeded its target of water supply by commissioning five new reservoirs each one at Sultanpur Dabas, Qutab Garh, Ramlila Ground, Kirari and an underground reservoir near ESI Hospital on Anandmai Marg.

With the commissioning of these reservoirs, about seven lakh people will get benefit of water supply in north-west district, old Delhi and some parts of south-west Delhi, an official of the DJB said.

He said that by commissioning the new underground reservoirs at Kirari and near ESI Hospital on Anandmai Marg, about two lakh people living in 50 unauthorized colonies have been provided potable water facility through the piped network.

The DJB is further planning to commission three more reservoirs one each at Kirti Nagar, Janakpuri and Shalimar Garden by December 2014, thus creating a record in itself of commissioning eight underground reservoirs in a year.

At present, the DJB has a water supply network, comprising of seven water treatment plants, 107 primary underground reservoirs and a large number of secondary underground reservoirs connected through a web of more than 12,000-km-long pipelines and is constantly working to improve its service delivery.

New Delhi, August 27
A delegation of BJP MLAs under the leadership of Delhi BJP president Satish Upadhyay submitted a memorandum to the Delhi Police Commissioner, B.S. Bassi, asking him to form a high-level working group and thana (police station) level committees to listen to the public grievances.

After a long discussion with the MLAs, the Police Commissioner assured them that police officers are cordial in their behaviour and the points of grievances are responded to at the earliest.

Besides high-level working group, the memorandum pointed out that the police officers should behave with due courtesy with elected representatives and crime against women need to be handled sternly. Cases of organized sex rackets involving even foreign nationals often get reported with the needle of suspicion hinting towards the involvement of area police officers. Stern steps should be taken against the area SHO. — TNS