HYDERABAD: Two years after it was formed, Hyderabad district’s Local Complaints Committee (LCC) received four complaints in 2019. The Rangareddy district’s LCC, which has jurisdiction over the IT zone of the city, got two complaints.
LCC is a district-level establishment by the collectorate to address complaints of sexual harassment at the workplace from employees of the unorganised sector and organisations with less than 10 workers.
The Hyderabad LCC was established in July 2018.
Hyderabad LCC officials said that three of the four cases have now been solved, while one is sub-judice.
“One of the cases involving a government official is now in the court as the LCC’s decision finding the accused guilty was challenged. However, as a positive outcome, the government institution where this whole issue happened was forced to set up an Internal Complaints Committee as a result,” said Jameela Nishat, member of the Hyderabad LCC.
This LCC recently met and discussed how to make the system more robust. “We are now planning to write to all companies within the Hyderabad District limits and get a status check on individual ICC’s to fine-tune the system,” added Jameela.
The LCC of Hyderabad is headed by Dr Himabindu of Niloufer Hospital and accompanied by several senior women officials from various departments.
In the context of Rangareddy, both the cases were closed without being resolved. In one the survivor withdrew her case, stating she wasn’t harassed sexually and the harassment was more in the context of work pressure.
In the other case, the survivor had approached the district LCC to appeal against the decision of her company’s ICC. The LCC, however, rejected the same and referred the appeal to the labour tribunal.In Rangareddy, the chairperson of LCC is LB Hari Priya with NGO member K Satyavathi from Bhoomika.