Privacy policy

Who we are

Vaishalya Wellness is a unit of Asha Bhupender Charitable Trust, a registered organisation working in mental health and community welfare. Registration No. 2025/238/4/186.

Mohal, Gugga Saloh Rd, Tehsil Sullah, Palampur, Himachal Pradesh 176102.
+91 82194 74936 and +91 70181 48449
info@vaishalyawellness.com

Under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 we are the Data Fiduciary for the information described here. In plain terms, we are the ones answerable for it.

What we collect

Listed item by item, because a vague list is not much use to somebody deciding whether to contact us at all.

When you fill a form on this website

This covers the contact form, the callback popup, the enquiry panel in the help widget, and the internship and volunteer forms.

Name

So the person calling you back knows who she is speaking to

Phone number

To return your call

Email address

Only if you give one

Who the enquiry is for

Yourself, a daughter, sister, wife, mother, or friend

Type of support needed

The treatment or concern you select

Anything you type

The message or additional details box, in your own words

Page, date and time

Which page you sent it from, so we know what you were reading

When you take the self assessment

The self assessment asks about your relationship with alcohol, nicotine, drugs or food, and shows you a result. Where the tool gives you that result without asking for your contact details, we are not holding those answers against your name. If you choose to send us the result, or fill in your details alongside it, then we do receive your answers and we treat them with the same care as the clinical information described further down this page.

When you call or message us

• Your phone number, and what you tell us during the call
• Short notes a coordinator writes down, so you are not made to repeat the whole story to the next person you speak to
• WhatsApp messages you send us, held the same way as any message sitting on your own phone

We do not record phone calls.

If a woman is admitted

This is the sensitive part, and it is kept separately from anything to do with the website.

• Identity and address proof, age, next of kin, and the nominated representative
• Medical and psychiatric history, substance use history, examination findings and lab reports
• Treatment notes, medication records, counselling and therapy notes
• Consent and admission forms signed at the time of admission

This is health information. It counts as sensitive personal data under the Information Technology (Reasonable Security Practices) Rules, 2011 and as confidential health information under the Mental Healthcare Act, 2017.

What the website collects on its own

• IP address, browser and device type, pages visited and time spent, in ordinary server logs
• Cookies, described in section twelve

Why we hold it

• To call you back when you have asked for a consultation
• To answer the question you actually asked, rather than a generic one
• To work out whether our programme suits the person, before anybody travels to Palampur
• To plan and deliver treatment, and to keep the records a clinical establishment is required by law to keep
• To reach a family member or nominated representative in an emergency
• To follow up after discharge, where the resident has agreed to it
• To keep the website running, and to catch spam and abuse

What you write in a form is not used to target advertising at you, and it is never passed to a lead broker.

Consent, and taking it back

When you send us a form or ask for a callback, you are consenting to us using those details for the purposes listed above. Nothing beyond that.

You can withdraw that consent whenever you like, and it should be no harder than giving it was. Call us, or write to info@vaishalyawellness.com and say you want your enquiry removed. We will confirm once it is done.

Two honest limits. Withdrawing consent stops us using your details from that point onward, it does not unwind what was already done lawfully. And it does not delete clinical records that the law requires us to retain for a fixed period, though those records stay confidential either way.

What we never do

• Sell, rent or trade your information. There is no version of this where your details end up with a lead broker.
• Tell an employer, a college, an insurer, a landlord or a neighbour anything at all.
• Confirm to a caller that a particular woman is here, or has ever been here, whoever they say they are. If somebody rings asking about a resident, they are told nothing.
• Use a resident's name, photograph, story or voice in anything public without separate written permission, which she can withdraw later.
• Add you to a marketing list because you once made an enquiry.
• Write anything on an envelope or parcel that gives away what we treat.

Who is allowed to see it

Inside the centre, access runs on need to know. The admission coordinator sees enquiry details. Doctors, counsellors and nursing staff see the clinical information relevant to the care they are giving. Nobody opens a file out of curiosity, and staff are bound by confidentiality terms that continue after they leave.

Outside the centre, the list is short and specific.

Form delivery service

Web3Forms, which carries what you submit on this website into our email inbox

Website host and email provider

The companies that run the server this site sits on and the inbox your message lands in

Visiting doctors, labs, pharmacies

Only what is needed to treat the person, and only where her treatment requires it

Statutory authorities

Where a law, a court or a competent authority requires disclosure

If a court or an authority orders us to hand over records, we will tell the person concerned that it has happened, unless the law forbids us from telling her.

Confidentiality during treatment

Section 23 of the Mental Healthcare Act, 2017 gives a person receiving mental healthcare the right to confidentiality about her mental health, her treatment and her physical health. That right sits above everything else in this policy. The Act allows information to be released only in narrow situations:

• To her nominated representative, so that person can carry out their duties
• To other health professionals, so they can provide her care and treatment
• Where it is necessary to protect someone from harm or violence, and then only the part needed to prevent that specific harm
• Where there is a threat to life, and then only what is needed to prevent it
• On the order of the Mental Health Review Board, the High Court, the Supreme Court or another competent statutory authority
• In the interests of public safety and security

One thing families ask about often. Family counselling is part of the programme and we encourage it, but what an adult woman says in an individual session is not repeated to her family without her agreement. Being the person who paid the fee does not create a right to read her file.

Under 18, and lawful guardians

This website is meant for adults. If the person needing help is under 18, we deal with a parent or lawful guardian and take verifiable consent from them before we process her information. The Digital Personal Data Protection Rules, 2025 allow a mental health establishment to process a child's data where it is necessary to protect her health, and we rely on that only for treatment. We do not use it for anything else, we do not track children, and we do not target advertising at them.

The same approach applies where an adult has a lawful guardian appointed under the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016.

How long we keep it

Enquiries that do not lead to admission

24 months, then deleted

Enquiries you ask us to delete

Removed on request, without waiting for that period to run out

Clinical records

At least three years from discharge, in line with medical record keeping norms in India, and longer where a case is under review or a legal proceeding requires it

Website server logs

12 months

Once information has served the purpose it was collected for, we delete it. That is both our practice and what the law now requires.

How we protect it

• Paper files are kept locked, and never left where residents or visitors can read them
• Digital access is password controlled and limited to the staff who need it
• This website runs over an encrypted connection, so what you type into a form is not readable in transit
• Staff confidentiality obligations continue after they leave

No system is perfect and we are not going to claim otherwise. If a breach happens that affects your information, we will tell you what was exposed and what you can do about it, and we will report it to the Data Protection Board of India as the law requires.

Your rights

Under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 you can ask us to do the following, and we will not ask you why you want it.

See what we hold

A summary of your information and what we have done with it

Correct it

Fix anything wrong, complete anything missing, update anything out of date

Erase it

Delete it, except where a law requires us to keep it

Nominate someone

Name a person who can exercise these rights for you if you are unable to

Complain

Raise a grievance with us first, and escalate it if we do not put it right

To use any of these, write to info@vaishalyawellness.com or call +91 82194 74936. We reply within 30 days, usually a good deal sooner. We may need to check that you are who you say you are before we act, which is a protection for you rather than an obstacle.

Separately, Section 25 of the Mental Healthcare Act, 2017 gives a person the right to see her own medical records. A mental health professional may withhold a specific part of a record where releasing it would be likely to cause her serious mental harm, and if that happens she can have the decision reviewed by the Mental Health Review Board.

Cookies and website tools

Essential cookies

Needed for pages to load and forms to work

Analytics

Counts visits and shows which pages get read. It reports numbers and general locations, not names

Embedded map

Google Maps, which loads from Google's servers when you view the contact section

Embedded video

YouTube, which may set its own cookies if you play a video

Fonts

Google Fonts, loaded to display the type on this site

WhatsApp

Clicking a WhatsApp link takes you to WhatsApp, which has its own privacy terms

You can clear or block cookies in your browser settings. And a practical note, since it matters here more than on most websites. If you are reading this on a shared phone or a family computer, clearing your browser history afterwards is a sensible thing to do. Nobody at this end would think twice about it.

Information stored outside India

Some of the services that keep this website running store data on servers outside India. Indian law currently permits this, other than to countries the Central Government specifically restricts. Clinical records created at the centre are held in India.

Grievance officer

If you are unhappy with the way we have handled your information, take it to the officer named here. You do not need a lawyer or a particular format. An email explaining the problem is enough.

Name

Leena Mehta

Designation

Founder and Counselling Psychologist, Vaishalya Wellness

Email

info@vaishalyawellness.com

Phone

+91 82194 74936

Address

Mohal, Gugga Saloh Rd, Tehsil Sullah, Palampur, Himachal Pradesh 176102

Reply within

One month of receiving your complaint

If we do not resolve it to your satisfaction, you can take the complaint to the Data Protection Board of India.

Changes to this policy

We will update this page as our practices or the law change, and the date at the top will always tell you when it last changed. If a change materially affects how we handle your information, we will say so on the page rather than quietly editing a line.