What is the Working Women Hostel Scheme?

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The government of India launched the Working Women Hostel Scheme in order to promote the availability of convenient and reliable accommodation available for working women that are leaving their homes due to professional commitments.

According to this scheme, the government will provide a grant-in-aid for the construction of these new buildings as well as the expansion of existing buildings to accelerate the facilities of hostels in cities, towns and villages.

Salient features of the scheme

Some of the key features of the Working Women Hostel Scheme are stated below:

  • Day care centre

It is not possible for working women to take their children along with them to their offices. Therefore, for assisting such working mothers, the hostel authority will provide Day Care services also. Over here, the children will be taken care of when their mothers are not available. However, this service comes with an extra cost

  • Number of hostels

Accommodating so many working women is not an easy task. For meeting the housing needs and requirements, the government has given permission for the establishment of 70000 working hostels for women. The construction task on all 938 hostels has been started as the first step towards achieving the target.

Objectives of the scheme

Some of the main motives behind launching the Working Women Hostel Scheme are as follows:

  1. To promote the service in urban, semi-urban or even rural areas where employment opportunities for women exist
  2. To promote the safety and accommodation for the working women along with day care facilities for their children, wherever possible
  3. To support establishment projects of new hostel buildings, an extension of existing buildings in rented premises
  4. To house women who are under training for jobs subject to the specific conditions under the scheme
  5. To make it available for all women to work without discrimination or prejudice.

Eligibility criteria

In order to be eligible for the Working Women Hostel Scheme, the applicants need to fulfil the following criteria:

  • Separated, single or widowed women

According to the program, the hostels will be open to those women as well who do not have anyone to care for them. The women can be widowed, single or separated from their husbands or families. Married women who do not have any kin in the city can also avail themselves of the benefits of the Working Women Hostel Scheme.

  • Female trainee

In case the female applicant who is seeking a room in the hostel is in some kind of job training, then they will be permitted to stay in the hostel. The time period of the training should not be more than one. The allotment of rooms will be done according to the vacancy. Job trainees should not be more than 30% with respect to the total number of women living in the accommodation.

  • Handicapped women

In case the female applicant falls under the category of physically handicapped and have legal documents, then the hostel will provide accommodation to them as well. This step will be taken in order to give them security.

  • Age of children

The women staying in these housing accommodations can also bring along their children with them. In such cases, the working mother will be allowed in doing so only if the girl and boy are more than 9 and 15 years of age respectively.

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