Nirbhaya funds have finally got moving after three years. The Women and Child Development Ministry — the nodal Ministry for the disbursement of the `3,000 crores corpus created for funding projects to enhance women safety in the country — is ready with the first two rape crisis centres, which will open in July in Chhattisgarh and Punjab.
The Nirbhaya fund has a total of `3,000 crore as `1,000 crore each was allocated to it in 2014-15 and 2015-16 on top of `1,000 crore initial corpus, set up after the December 16, 2012 brutal gang-rape of a young paramedic in the Capital.
The WCD Ministry also plans to link the rape crisis centres with the universal helpline for women such as to maximize its reach. “Work is complete in the Raipur (Chhattisgarh) centre. The second rape crisis centre in Bhatinda in Punjab should also be complete by the end of this month,” said an official from the WCD ministry.
“As soon as the states are identifying their land and sending in their proposals we are allocating the funds so as to avoid any further delays. We are looking at completing 36 centres across India by the end of this financial year,” said the official.
Soon after taking office last May, Union women and child development minister Maneka Gandhi had suggested a network of 660 ‘Nirbhaya Centres’ - one each in 640 districts and another 20 in the six metros. But the project was downsized by the Prime Minister’s office.
“All the centres have to be built using a uniform design, with pre-fabricated material. Once the states send us their land approvals, the contractor NBCC will go ahead with the construction. Since it is a pre-set model, the construction will not take more than one month,” said the official.
According to the official, the ministry is ready with the funds and the plans; but it is the states which are causing the delay. “We have sent a few reminders but several states are yet to respond,” said the official.
“The states have to identify and provide land, besides providing the required training to the staff, which is to be recruited at the cells,” he said.
Under the approved plan, each centre will have nine employees, including a paramedic who will refer the complainants to hospitals, a lawyer, a counsellor, and a retired police officer not below the rank of inspector to help the complainants file FIRs.
The centre will double as a short-stay home for the complainants and, if necessary, refer them to long-term homes. For the care and protection of the ‘victims’, the centre may also have a video-conferencing facility with the police and courts, to be overseen by the staff at the department of information technology.
According to the WCD proposal, a ‘national task force’ headed by the ministry secretary will evaluate the functioning of all the centres annually.