After 4-year-old girl’s fall, govt to frame rules for private crèches

Four-year-old Aparajita Yadav was lucky to have survived a fall from the balcony of a crèche on the 10th floor of a Kharghar building. But the accident has forced the government to take the issue of private crèches more seriously.

Four-year-old Aparajita Yadav was lucky to have survived a fall from the balcony of a crèche on the 10th floor of a Kharghar building. But the accident has forced the government to take the issue of private crèches more seriously.

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Till now the government has no regulations or control over private crèches functioning from homes.

However, women and child development minister Varsha Gaikwad has decided to frame guidelines and make registration mandatory for private crèches, which is a huge unorganised sector in Mumbai.

The department will also be pushing for implementation of the rule cleared in May 2012, which makes it mandatory for all work places with a large female population to set up in-house crèches.

According to Aparajita’s parents, she fell down through a gap in the balcony, which had not been fixed with safety grills despite their requests. The girl survived but lost vision in one eye and her leg was badly damaged.

“Private crèches is an unorganised sector and there are no rules governing them. We will be approaching the urban development and labour departments for setting up guidelines, which will make it mandatory for crèches to register and follow guidelines of basic safety such as installing grills and issues of hygiene,” said Gaikwad.

“Today women work in several sectors, including IT, in malls, in several back offices, call centres and even government officers. If every organisation can set up a day care centre where the child can be kept for eight hours, then mothers can also see their children between work and there is a sense of security,” Gaikwad said.