Minister: No changing rooms for women cops in GRP stations in Odisha

BHUBANESWAR: Not a single government railway police (GRP) station in Odisha has changing rooms for women cops, according to a reply by the minister of state for home, Tusharkanti Behera, in the assembly on Monday, belying the tall claims of the state and Centre on gender equality in policing.
Neither the offices of the two railway district SPs at Cuttack and Rourkela, nor the GRP stations and barracks in Odisha has any dress changing room for women police personnel. The women employees are using the normal rooms of the GRP stations to change their clothes, read Behera’s written reply in response to a question by Congress MLA Tara Prasad Bahinipati.
According to Behera’s reply, the railway ministry develops all infrastructure at the GRP stations for their proper functioning. The state government has not allocated any funds for development of infrastructure at the GRP stations, the minister said.
The GRP functions under the administrative control of the Odisha Police. The GRP is responsible for the maintenance of law & order and investigation of crime on the railway premises and properties.
Currently, around 25 women police personnel have been posted in all 15 GRP stations in Odisha. They have been undergoing untold misery due to unavailability of changing rooms at their workplace.
“We are forced to use the small and dirty washrooms to change our clothes as we have acute space shortage at all GRP stations. We do not have separate toilets even for women. While the general police stations in Odisha are clean and women-friendly, the GRP stations have been neglected by the railways,” a woman assistant sub-inspector (ASI) said.
Last year, the Odisha Police requested the East Coast Railway (ECoR) to improve the infrastructure of GRP stations. While a normal police station has a plinth area of 8,000 sqft in rural areas and 11,500 sqft in urban areas, a GRP station has a plinth area of only 800 sqft.
“The infrastructure of the general police stations in our state has undergone a sea change. But the standard of GRP stations has not improved since decades,” a senior railway police official said. Contacted, the ECoR said they would assess the infrastructure gap, if any, at the GRP stations.