More than two years after the Centre set up the high profile Nirbhaya Fund with a corpus of Rs. 1000 crore, only Rs. 200 crore has been allocated so far towards various schemes to ensure women’s safety.
The fund was set up after the horrific rape and murder of a 23-year old medical student in the national capital in 2012.
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Responding to an RTI query from the Bengaluru-headquartered onlinerti.com, the Union Finance Ministry said: “Nirbhaya Fund has been created as a corpus of Rs 1,000 crore in public account in the Department of Economic Affairs for the financial year 2013-14.”
The reply says that allocations from the Fund have been made in the General Budget 2014-15 with Rs. 50 crore for the ‘Scheme on Women Safety on Public Road Transport’ to be administered by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways and Rs.150 crore for ‘Schemes on backend integration of distress signal from victims with mobile vans and control rooms’ to be administered by the Ministry of Home Affairs.
While the Road Transport Ministry said in its RTI reply that it had spent just over Rs. 32.92 lakh of the total Rs. 50 crore allotted to it, the Home Ministry has not yet replied to the RTI query on the deployment of the Rs. 150 crore.
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“I asked for the information in September last year and a month later the Finance Ministry gave the details of the allocation amounting to Rs. 200 crore. While the Road Transport Ministry replied last month saying it has spent Rs. 32 lakh, the Home Ministry has not replied at all,” Vinoth of onlinerti.com told The Hindu .