NEW DELHI : President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam has asked the National Commission for Women (NCW) to act as the nodal agency for creating rehabilitation centres for mentally ill and homeless women.

He asked the Commission to take up the task of making the country free from uncared mentally ill women within the next five years by creating at least 300 compassionate organisations, which can take up the cause.

Inaugurating a seminar on "Mentally ill women — Is destitution the only answer?" to mark International Women's Day, Mr. Kalam said the NCW, along with various Government Departments and State Women Commissions, could work to create a hundred rehabilitation centres and 1,000 after-care-homes in the country.

The corporate sector and societal transformers, with the help of trained people, could also work for this cause. The programme should include welfare of the children of the affected persons and counselling for the family with the Ministries of Social Justice and Women and Child Development providing necessary funds and infrastructural support.

Creation of web site

He said the NCW could create a web site where societal members could report about the destitute they came across daily.

This would enable treatment and rehabilitation centres to approach the destitute and persuade them to undergo treatment.

The Commission could also seek the assistance of police, scouts and guides and volunteers for collecting and registering of data about the destitute on the web site.

The police could be sensitised during the training process to take pro-active action to report the existence of persons with mental illness who are found in their jurisdiction to the nearest rehabilitation centre, besides advising the relatives of the affected persons to take the individual for treatment.

"The developed status of society is indicated by the respect society gives to its womanhood," he said.

There are about 2,500 mentally ill abandoned women in the capital.

Of the total number of mentally ill people, nine lakh are women.

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