Augment safety in B’luru PGs

A Bengaluru PG facility is in the news for a heinous crime against a female inmate. In July last year, a woman inmate was brutally murdered by an in truder who gained entry through the unguarded main entrance. Being a hub of educational institutions and the IT industry, the city has around 20,000 PGs hosting over 17 lakh students and employed individuals.

Drawn from varied destinations, anonymity is the major critical concern which brings in its wake liberties and commensurate vulnerabilities. Women are mostly the victims of heinous sexual crimes. The PGs have come up in all kinds of localities, in unauthorized buildings or in floors that violate zonal regulations and openly flout the norms.

Newer and peripheral areas have more of them. Neighbours are put to inconvenience due to drone of vehicles during the rest hours and visitors who park vehicles, smoke and loiter in the streets at all hours of the day and night. Though the BBMP issued guidelines on how to run PGs last year, hundreds of them are still without licences and flout the regulations and norms with least concern for safety, hygiene and privacy of the inmates.

PGs are man dated to collect identity details of the inmates, details of their blood relatives, install CCTV cameras, comply with fire safety measures, obtain a trade licence from the BBMP, maintain a register of visitors and seek FSSAI approval if a kitchen is also being operated.

Under the Karnataka Police Safety Act, they are liable to have 30-day backup of CCTV footage. But such is their mushroom growth, most norms remain on paper as the regulatory authorities lack the wherewithal to enforce compliance. In a crackdown after the female inmate’s murder, the BBMP sealed 187 of the unauthorised PGs earlier this year.

But the larger question of safety of the inmates remains. Female PGs must employ female security staff and the inmates must be directed to not allow visitors from the opposite gender within the premises. Though this may be construed an illiberal move, there are no ways crimes such as the recent one can be otherwise avoided.