THIRUVANATHAPURAM: Blame it for the power disruptions or the nasty-looking electricity bills, but you just can’t blame the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) for being not baby-friendly.After IT hub Technopark, it’s now the state-run power utility’s turn to plan a creche to help out working mothers at ‘Vydyuthi Bhavan’, its rambling headquarters at Pattom. Bowing to popular demand, the KSEB top brass has concluded it is high time KSEB reached out to the baby-folk. So, very soon, KSEB parents will be able to drop off their kids at the creche, and pop in for work next door, or at the most, a few floors up."We have quite a large number of staff here. The creche will cater primarily to the staff at Vydyuthi Bhavan, but people in the nearby KSEB offices also can use it,’’ said Annamma John, Deputy Chief Engineer (Civil Construction).The creche will be situated on the first floor of the building, and the Civil Section, which functions there now, will be moved to the fourth floor."We are planning the facility on about 1,500 sq ft. Other details such as total strength will be decided after studying the response,’’ she said."You already have several large government offices sporting day cares; the BSNL, for instance. There is a lot of demand now,’’ Annamma said.Many large offices, government and private, are now seriously looking at creches with working hours extending well beyond 5 pm. Proximity and the increasing difficulty of landing good ayahs willing to spend time on somebody else’s child also make it an attractive prospect for working parents.Recently, Technopark had made news by opening a day care for its employees. The IT hub at Kazhakkoottam, which employs thousands of techies, had tied up with the Trivandrum International School to start the facility. Here too, the employees had been clamouring for a day care so that they could be near their young ones even at work.
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