The
Hindu: Chennai: Monday, 16 March 2015.
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.
RTI route
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.
“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.
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