Telangana Government’s Department of Women Development and Child Welfare vide its Notification on its website, has mandated entities with 10 or more employees to register their Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) constituted under Section 4 of the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 (“POSH”) on the T-She box web portal on or before July 15, 2019, failing which a penalty of Rs.50,000/- will be imposed on the defaulting entities.
POSH is an act notified in 2013 with an intention to provide protection against sexual harassment of women at workplace and for redressal of complaints of sexual harassment. Section 6 of POSH mandates that every District Officer should constitute a ‘Local Complaints Committee’ to receive complaints of sexual harassment from establishments where ICC has not been constituted due to having less than ten workers. Hence, every employer with 10 or more employees is required to constitute an ICC with a senior level woman presiding officer, a member from a non-governmental organization and at least two members among the employees.
The present notification in Telangana mandates registering of such ICC with the Department of Woman and Child Welfare. On a similar note, Karnataka Government vide its Notification dated May 25, 2019, made it mandatory for IT/ITES companies to form an ICC under POSH to avail an exemption till May 24, 2024, from the applicability of Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946.
Source: http://tshebox.tgwdcw.in/
