Nirbhaya Fund: Projects worth ₹ 6755 crores approved, only 20% utilized
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
December 12, 2019
The gruesome rape & murder of a veterinary doctor in Hyderabad has once again triggered the debate on safety of women. Apathy of governments is visible from the state of utilization of the Nirbhaya fund, established in the aftermath of the Nirbhaya incident in Delhi in 2012. Out of the ₹ 6755 crores worth projects approved so far, only about ₹ 1380 crores is utilized, which is just about 20%. Maharashtra utilized only 0.1% of the funds released so far.
Aftermath of the brutal2012 gang rape in Delhi, a few policy changes that were effected to tacklecrimes against women. Apart from the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act,
2013 or Nirbhaya Act, the Government of India has also launched the Nirbhaya Fund. This is a corpus fundcreated to support initiatives and measures taken to ensure the safety ofwomen.
Since the launch of thefund, the government has from time-to-time transferred money to this corpusfund and multiple new initiatives have been funded from this corpus.
In this story, weexplore details of the Nirbhaya Fund and take a look at the differentinitiatives/schemes funded through the Nirbhaya Fund along with the status ofutilization of these funds.
Nirbhaya Fund is a
non-lapsable corpus fund set up for enhancing safety and security of women
The Nirbhaya Fund is a non-lapsable corpus fund which is administered by the Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance. This fund is dedicated specifically to improvise the safety and security of women.
The Ministry of Financehas issued guidelines on 25 March 2015, regardingthe framework of Nirbhaya Fund. The Ministry of Women and Child Development(MWCD) is appointed as the nodal ministry to appraise proposals for recommendedschemes that can be funded under the Nirbhaya Fund. In addition to this, theMWCD also has the responsibility of reviewing and monitoring the progress ofthese sanctioned schemes.
Appraisal and
recommendation of proposals is done by an Empowered Committee
An empowered committee was constituted on 26 October 2015 whose responsibility is to appraise and recommend the proposals to be funded through this fund.
The composition of theEmpowered committee is:
Any proposal made by thecentral government can be directly sent to MWCD while, the state departments arerequired to submit them to relevant central government department which arethen forwarded to MWCD.
Once the empoweredcommittee makes recommendations, the respective department places the proposalbefore the competent authority as per the following financial limits:
Apart from MWCD, which is the nodal agency for allocating funds, eventhe Ministry of Finance can disburse funds for few projects.
A total of ₹ 3,600 crores transferred to Corpus Fund as of 2018-19
Nirbhaya Fund was launched in the year 2013-14 with a corpus of ₹1,000 crore. As per an answer in Lok Sabha on 27 July 2018, further ₹ 2,600 were transferred to the corpus fund in the subsequent years.
Afterallocation of ₹1000crore per year during the first two years, there was no new transfer during2015-16 to Nirbhaya corpus fund. In the next two years ₹ 550 crores per year was added tothe corpus with ₹ 500crores being allocated in 2018-19. A total of ₹ 3,600 crores has been allocatedto Nirbhaya fund corpus till 2018-19.  Inthe 2019-20 budget, ₹ 500crores is estimated to be transferred to the corpus fund.
Nearly ₹ 6,755 crores approved for various schemes from Nirbhaya Fund, only 20%
utilized
Fundsunder the Nirbhaya scheme have been allocated to various schemes, launched bydifferent departments, focussed on enhancing the safety and security of women andto provide justice. The analysis presented in this story is based on the dataprovided by Minister for Women & Child Development in Lok Sabha, on twoseparate occasions in response to the questions raised by Members ofParliament.
As per aresponse in Lok Sabha on 26 July 2019, the minister provided thedetails of the various schemes under different ministries/departments, whichwere funded from the Nirbhaya corpus. In this response, the details werecategorised under various heads like – Appraisal Amount, Amount Approved by CFA(Competent Financial Authority), Amount Released and Amount Utilized.
As perthis data, total of ₹ 6,755crores were approved by CFA for various schemes launched by differentMinistries/departments. These include – Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry ofRailways, Ministry of Road Transport & Highways, Ministry of Women andChild Development, Department of Justice and Ministry of Electronics andInformation Technology.
The HomeMinistry’s ‘Safe  City  Proposal’ scheme has the highest allocationwith ₹ 2,840crores of which ₹ 734crores have been released and utilized as per the information provided in LokSabha on 26 July 2019.
Amongother schemes, One Stop Centre  (OSC) hasa total approved allocation of ₹ 868crores, of which ₹ 289crores were released and ₹49.9crores were utilized.
Overall, ofthe ₹ 6755crores approved so far, only ₹ 1377crores have been utilized which is about 20% utilization.
Not a single rupee allocated to set up Fast Track Special courts utilized
so far
TheMinistry of Women & Child Development, responding to question in the Lok Sabha on 29 November 2019, provided information of theallocation and utilization of the Nirbhaya funds allocated to States/UTs undervarious schemes.
As perthis data, States/UTs has received a total of ₹ 1,672.2 crores for variousschemes under the Home Ministry. Of this, only ₹ 147 crores have been utilized i.e.8.8%. Meanwhile, the states/UTs were allocated a total of ₹ 372.64crores for various schemes under Ministry for Women & Child Development, ofwhich only ₹ 70.7crores were utilized.
Meanwhile,11 states (Jharkhand, Maharashtra, MP, Kerala, Karnataka, Manipur, Nagaland,Odisha, Rajasthan, Tripura, Uttarakhand) received ₹ 78.9 crores to set up Fast TrackSpecial courts for disposing cases pending under Rape & POCSO Act, but nota single rupee has been utilized as per the latest data.
One
stop Centre Scheme is one of the key initiatives by MWCD, to provideintegrated support and assistance under one roof, to women affected byviolence. A total of ₹ 311.2 croreshave been allocated from Nirbhaya Fund, for all the states & UTs (exceptfor West Bengal & Lakshadweep). However only ₹ 42.9 crores have been utilized so far. Even the other schemes underMWCD like the ‘Mahila
Police Volunteer Scheme’ and ‘Universalization
of Women Helpline Scheme’ have less utilization ratio across all the statesand UTs.
Delhi, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu & UP have received the highest
allocation over the years
As notedearlier, the states can also submit proposals to utilize funds from theNirbhaya corpus.  The relevant State  Government Departments can also formulateproposals and submit them to the concerned Central Government Ministry/Department.
A totalof ₹ 2,264.9crores is allocated from the Nirbhaya fund so far to different states, under thevarious schemes of different ministries.
The UT ofDelhi was allocated the highest amount from the Nirbhaya fund. It received atotal of ₹ 393.4crores. Among the states, Karnataka received the highest with ₹ 245.6crores , followed by Tamil Nadu which received ₹ 208.9 crores.
The stateof Uttar Pradesh was given ₹ 195.5crores while Maharashtra received ₹ 202.9 under the Nirbhaya Fund.
Of thestates, the least amount was given to Sikkim at ₹ 8.6 crores. The other stateswhich received lower amounts of allocation include : Goa (₹ 9.01crores), Meghalaya (₹12.3crores) and Tripura (₹13.22)crores.
Uttar Pradesh followed by Chhattisgarh and Delhi have utilized the
highest amount by volume for various schemes.
Out ofthe total allocation, a sum of ₹ 252.1crores was utilized by the states for various schemes sponsored from theNirbhaya fund, which is just 11.1% of the amount released.
UttarPradesh has utilized the highest amount with a total of ₹ 41.9crores. It needs to be noted that UP has received the 4 highestamount among the states and UTs.
Chhattisgarhutilised the second highest amount with ₹ 20.3 crores followed by Delhiwith ₹ 19.4crores. Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh which are among the states which receivedthe higher amounts spent only ₹ 15.8crores and 14.3 crores respectively.
Maharashtrautilized only 0.19 crores, the least among all the states and UTs while itreceived the 5 highest amount.
Only 11.1% of the total funds utilized by States Maharashtra utilized
only 0.1%
Of thetotal funds released from Nirbhaya corpus to the states under various schemes, only 11.1% were utilized so far.
Maharashtrahas significantly low utilization of funds with only 0.1% of the funds utilizedso far. As noted earlier in the story, Maharashtra is among the states with higherallocation (₹ 195.5crores) but the utilization was only ₹ 0.19 crores.
The stateof Telangana, where the recent gruesome case of murder and rape took place, hasutilized only 5.7% of the total allocation under Nirbhaya Fund. States of TamilNadu (3.4%), West Bengal (5.1%), Odisha (6.3%) and Karnataka (6.4%) utilizedlesser proportion of funds compared to the national average utilization of 11.1%if one goes by the data provided by the government in the Lok Sabha on 29 November 2019.
TheNational Capital Territory of Delhi, which records a higher incidence of crimesagainst women, and also the place where the Nirbhaya incident occurred,utilized only 4.9% of the funds released so far.
Low Utilization of allocated funds across states for key schemes
Ashighlighted earlier in the article, none of the funds allocated throughDepartment of Justice to set up Fast track courts have been utilised by thestates. A total of 11 states were released funds to setup fast track courts.
Similarly,12 states received funds for MWCD’s ‘Mahila Police Volunteer Scheme’, of which the utilization is lowamong all the states. Andhra Pradesh has utilized only ₹ 0.75 crores of the ₹ 5.2crores it received. Similarly, Chhattisgarh which received the highestallocation of ₹ 7.15crores under this scheme, utilized only ₹1.5 crores.
Universalizationof Women Helpline Scheme is a key initiative to developan emergency response system using a single emergency number. Funding was providedto nearly all the states and most of these states have utilized more than 60%of the funds allocated. However, there are  exceptions like the states of Punjab,Meghalaya and Sikkim which have utilized only around 40% of the fundsallocated.
Out of ₹ 33.6crores allocated to Karnataka for ‘Training Women for Heavy Passengers vehicles’,under Ministry of Road Transport & Highways, only ₹ 2.2 crores is utilized so far.Meanwhile UP has utilized 77% of the ₹ 40.2 crores for ‘enhancing women safety in publictransport’ initiative. Meanwhile, none of the ₹ 58.6 crores allocated to AndhraPradesh for ‘Abhaya Project’ have been utilized.
Only 23% of funds allocated for CCPWC Scheme utilized by states
Theincrease in the usage of Internet and modern communication technologies haveresulted in a significant increase in cybercrimes over the years. Women andChildren are the major targets of such crimes. To tackle cyber-crimes againstwomen and children and develop and effective mechanism, Cyber Crime Preventionagainst Women and Children (CCPWC) scheme was introduced. Developing an Online Cyber reporting platform,national level cyber forensic laboratory, creating awareness, research &development are the key focus areas  ofthis scheme.
A totalof  ₹ 93.12 crores were released out of an estimated ₹ 223.2crores for the various activities to be taken up under CCPWC scheme. However,as per the information provided in Lok Sabha on 29 November 2019,  only ₹ 22 crores have been utilized by the states so far.
Allocated funds being not utilized defeats the purpose of establishing
Nirbhaya Fund.
Out ofthe ₹ 3,600corpus fund, nearly 63% i.e. ₹2,258.6crores have been released to the states and various departments to implementthe proposed schemes. However, utilizing only Rs 252.1 crores i.e 11.1% of theallocation by the states and only a 20% utilization of the overall approvedamount is a gross neglect of the purpose of establishing the Nirbhaya Fund.
As perNCRB’s CII report-2017, the rate of Crime Against Women is 57.9 (per 1 lakh population)and the total number of reported cases of crime against women in 2017 was 3.45lakh, higher than the previous two years. As we have highlighted in an earlier story, many instances of crime, especially against womendo not get reported. Therefore the actual incidence of crime against womencould be much higher than what the numbers indicate.
Againstthis background, the non-utilization of funds allocated specifically for thepurpose of enhancing safety of women reflects the apathy of the governments.
There is an urgent need for the Ministry of Women & Child Development to initiate a review on the state of utilization of the funds and complete the approved projects on a war footing.
Featured Image: Nirbhaya Fund Utilization