Under-utilisation of Nirbhaya Fund disturbing
The Government must take immediate steps to mobilise the funds allocated for improving women's safety through the Nirbhaya Fund. Set up in the aftermath of the gruesome December 16, 2012, gang rape in Delhi, this fund holds Rs3,000 crore but only a part of it has been allocated. A little less than half of the corpus, about Rs1,273.31 crore, is currently sitting idle, according to Union Minister Maneka Gandhi's statement to Parliament. Ms Gandhi's Women and Child Development Ministry is the nodal agency for deciding which scheme should get how much money from the Nirbhaya Fund, and she underlined in Parliament that only two schemes have been approved so far. One is from the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways which aims to improve the security of women passengers in public transport.
This scheme will cost an estimated Rs1,405 crore and aims to equip all public transport vehicles with global positioning systems and high-security number plates, and also install CCTVs in important public places among other measures. The other scheme has come from the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, which plans to set up a nationwide emergency response system for women in distress. This will cost an estimated Rs321.69 crore. There are also two other smaller schemes that are being prepared by the Ministry of Women and Child Development itself — one for the establishment of a centre for battered women and another for the universalisation of the women's helpline. Note, that there have been no significant project recommendations from the State Governments, for instance, even though the latter will also have to play an equal role in ensuring the safety of women since law and order is a State subject. In fact, the lack of proper schemes and proposals, for which money can be allocated from the Nirbhaya Fund, is one of the main reasons why crores of rupees, earmarked for improving women’s safety, is lying unutilised.
The other problem is that even where approved schemes exist and money for them is officially allocated, it takes an excruciatingly long time for the project work to begin at the ground level — in other words, for the money to be actually spent. For example, the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways which has been about allocated Rs50 crore from the Nirbhaya Fund for its women's safety project, has reportedly only spent a little more than Rs30 lakh. The Union Home Ministry has been given about Rs150 crore and there is no clarity on how much of that it has used. This is a fairly common problem in India wherein ample funds are allocated for different welfare plans and projects but either they are not utilised at all or not spent efficiently, as the Supreme Court also noted last month. The Nirbhaya Fund, however, is not just another Government scheme. It is a physical manifestation of a nationwide movement, and it is to be hoped that it will get the attention it deserves.