Working girls prefer PG to women’s hostel

Sukhmeet Bhasin

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, September 18

The hostel for working women run by the Red Cross Society near the Civil Hospital has failed to get response as only three women are staying in the hostel that has 31 rooms.

The condition is such that the Red Cross has to spend more money on the salaries of the staff, which includes warden, caretaker and security guard, than it is earning from the women staying here.

It seems that the reason behind the poor response here is its location, which is secluded due to girls don’t feel like staying here.

Another reason behind this is said to be lack of awareness among women regarding the hostel as not much advertisement has been carried out by the administration.

The Red Cross had kept minimal amount of Rs 1,500 per room from each person staying here and if the room is being shared, then a woman has to pay Rs 750.

On June 1, the working women’s hostel was inaugurated. Before this, the cancer short stay home was being run in the building.

However, owing to poor response, eight rooms have been given to the cancer short stay home and the remaining for the women’s hostel.

The cancer short stay home was constructed at a cost of Rs 3.15 crore and it started functioning from December 2014.

Warden Beant Kaur said only three women were staying here and she also failed to understand why it had failed to attract women even as they were charging nominal fee.

She said one reason could be that women had to stay here as per the rules and regulation, which was not liked by many girls.

Preetinder Kaur, a working woman, said she preferred to stay in a PG rather than working women’s hostel as she felt PG to be more secure and moreover, it was near to her office.

Another working girl Rajni Garg said she was staying with other girls in a rented room.

She went to see the working women’s hostel but she found it to be secluded and lonely as not many girls were staying in such the three-storey building.