HUDD Commnr Secy to be J&K nodal officer of ‘SHe Box’ portal

Jammu, Oct 23: Housing and Urban Development Department (HUDD), Commissioner Secretary, Mandeep Kaur has been nominated as J&K Nodal Officer for the “SHe Box” portal.

Sexual Harassment electronic Box (SHe-Box) is an online “Complaint Management System”, launched by the Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD), Government of India, for the women facing sexual harassment at workplace.

“SHe-Box”, as per MWCD, is an effort of the Government of India to provide a single window access to every woman, irrespective of her work status, whether working in organised or unorganised, private or public sector, to facilitate the registration of complaint related to sexual harassment. The domestic workers are also included within its ambit.

“It is hereby ordered that Mandeep Kaur, IAS, Commissioner/Secretary to the Government, Housing and Urban Development Department (HUDD) shall be the Union Territory level Nodal Officer for the SHe Box portal, of the Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India,” read an order issued by General Administration Department (GAD) Commissioner Secretary.

“Any woman, facing sexual harassment at workplace can register her complaint through “SHe-Box” portal. Once a complaint is submitted to “SHe-Box”; it will be directly sent to the concerned authority having jurisdiction to take action into the matter,” the procedural guidelines delineate.

The portal, aimed at implementation of “The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prhibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, was launched on August 29, 2024 by MWCD.

As per officials, the centralized platform, focussing on bolstering workplace safety for women, has been designed to create a repository of information related to Internal Committee (IC) and Local Committee (LC) established across the country and to streamline the registration and monitoring of complaints related to sexual harassment in the workplace.

“The improved version of SHe-Box has a feature to allow submission of complaints directly to the concerned IC or LC that will be chosen by the complainants. This will significantly reduce the delays and human interference in the complaint management system on workplace related sexual harassment of women,” officials maintain.