After a four-year delay, Maharashtra is finally set to get its first one-stop crisis centre by January. The civic-run KEM hospital has begun construction of what will be called a Nirbhaya Centre in two phases, in a 1,500-sq feet area inside the hospital premises. Victims of sexual abuse can directly approach this centre without going to the police station to file a complaint.

They would only be assigned numbers, without any names in the patient files, to protect their identity. With this, KEM will also become the first civic-run hospital across the country to procure a R11-lakh Colposcopy machine only for clinical forensic investigation of such victims. The Union Government had passed an order in 2014 regarding opening of a Nirbhaya Centre in every district across the state as a tribute to the victim of the December 16, 2012 Delhi gang-rape case. These centres would act as a one-stop facility for all kinds of aid to victims in distress including medical help, counselling, legal and police assistance, while ensuring anonymity for them. However, bureaucratic apathy resulted in the four-year delay in finally getting the space to construct the centre at KEM.