As sexual violence against women continues unabated in Delhi despite the outpouring of anguish over the December gang-rape, the city-state has moved to try and improve the level of safety at night by trying to pin responsibility on the relevant authorities for making sure public spaces are well lit.

A body headed by the lieutenant governor of Delhi said that municipal corporations and other agencies will be made co-accused in the event of assaults on women and children if the lighting is held to be inadequate at the site of such crimes.

“All concerned agencies responsible to construct, operate and maintain safer roads and public spaces will be made co-accused along with the concerned enforcement agency in the case of any criminal offence against women, children, disabled and senior citizens around these bus stops due to improper lighting /darkness,” said the minutes of a meeting held by the panel on 18 January made public recently.

Mint reported on 26 January that the meeting had prescribed proper lighting within 15 days of areas considered unsafe for women. The minutes show the panel has gone beyond this to make agencies liable to prosecution for negligence in this respect.

The brutal rape of a 23-year-old woman in a moving bus in Delhi on 16 December led to widespread expressions of public anger against the Congress-led Delhi state government over the non-implementation of strict rules regarding women’s safety and proper lighting. The incident also led to a debate on how better urban planning can be linked to women’s safety. The woman succumbed to her injuries at a Singapore hospital on 29 December.

The aim of the panel’s decision is to make sure that agencies in charge of roads such as the New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC), the Public Works Department (PWD) and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) are more responsible about their functions, said a senior Delhi government official.

“If something happens in a particular area, then responsibility needs to be fixed,” said the official, who didn’t want to be named. “We need to make sure that things are taken more seriously by these agencies and the monitoring of public utilities like bus stops and street lights becomes better.”

The official added that the Unified Traffic and Transportation Infrastructure (Planning and Engineering) Centre, or Uttipec, an urban planning body under the Delhi Development Authority, already has a set of street design guidelines that need to be implemented to ensure better safety in the city.

“Any road designed in the city should ideally be developed according to those guidelines,” the official added.

NDMC chairperson Archna Arora said she wasn’t aware of the development. “I haven’t seen it (the minutes). I will have to go through it to comment on it,” she said over the phone.

An NDMC official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said that just being mentioned in the minutes doesn’t mean the measure can be adopted.

“It doesn’t mean that it’s the law now,” said the official.

Kalpana Viswanath, who is associated with New Delhi-based women’s empowerment group Jagori and was also a part of the meeting, said that although such a requirement wasn’t part of the law, what it means is that the institution can be held liable in case of any incident. “You can now hold them responsible for not doing what they were supposed to do,” she said.

Ravi Dass, MCD’s engineer-in-chief, said his organization had passed on responsibility for the arterial roads.

“No big roads or bus stops are under MCD any longer. Only colony roads which are around 30ft wide are with MCD. All big roads have now gone to PWD,” he said over phone.

Meanwhile, Uttipec has also been designated with the task of preparing a pilot plan, involving other city planning and engineering agencies, including municipal corporations, to suggest measures to make vulnerable areas safer for women in Delhi.

The minutes of the 18 January meeting also showed that the panel wanted incentives to be given “to staff for good maintenance by all land and road owning agencies responsible for public space (roads, parks, etc.) management/maintenance.”