Women’s welfare: Working women at a loss over raise in hostel charges

This will help the dept provide the women better facilities, says spokesperson.

FAISALABAD:

Tenants of government hostels built to accommodate working women have protested the Women Development Department’s decision to raise the rents, charges and security fee of working women hostels in the city.

A spokesperson of the Women Development Department told The Express Tribune on Wednesday that security fee had been raised from Rs3,000 to Rs5,000. He said the monthly rent for a single-bed room had been raised from Rs1,000 to Rs2,000, the rent for a two-bed room from Rs1,600 to Rs2,200 and the rent for a three-bed room had been raised from Rs1,500 to Rs2,400. If a tenant has a guest in her room, the hostel administration will charge Rs200 per night, the spokesperson said. He said the monthly welfare fund had been raised from Rs100 to Rs300 as well. “The rates have been revised so that the department can provide modern facilities to hostel inmates,” he said. However, many of these inmates have protested against what they term is an exorbitant raise in rent, charges and security fee.

Naseema Akhtar, one such tenant, told The Express Tribune that the raise in hostel fares had created panic and frustration among the women. “The government had promised to provide us maximum incentives and facilities under the Women Empowerment Package but no practical steps have been taken so far.”

She said when working women had asked the government to raise their salaries it had refused to do so. And yet the government has no qualms raising the cost of living, Akhtar said. “So many women will now be unable to afford staying at these hostels and will become jobless,” she said.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 8^th, 2014.