In the aftermath of the infamous Nirbhaya gang rape case that happened in Delhi in December 2012, thousands of Indians across the country came out on the streets to protest against the atrocities that women have to face on the daily. A lot of the blame for not preventing these instances fell on the government.
Challenging the patriarchal mindset that enables rape culture, and in turn the rapists, is indeed a collective responsibility. However, there is a lot that the government can do to either prevent such horrible things from taking place or by providing relief and support to the victim while punishing the culprits.
The UPA government, therefore, outlined something that would help in the prevention of such atrocities in the future. The then Finance Minister Mr P Chidambaram announced the Nirbhaya Fund in his 2013 Budget speech. It was supposed to be a body of Rs 1,000 crores to be allocated to State governments to invest in schemes to improve and ensure the safety of women and provide easy access to emergency services when needed.
What Is The Nirbhaya Fund?
The Nirbhaya Fund was created to be used for projects designed specifically to improve the safety and security of women in public. It is a corpus or a body of Rs 1,000 crores that was allocated by the UPA government in the 2013 Union Budget. Since then, the fund has grown to a total of Rs 3,600 crores. While this scheme was set up in 2013, the disbursement of funds started picking up the pace in 2015.
The money is allocated under certain key schemes that include:
- Emergency Response Support System
- Cybercrime prevention against women
- One-stop centres
- Mahila police volunteers,
- Central Victim Compensation Fund
- Universalisation of Women Helpline Scheme
- Setting up of fast track courts
How Has The Money Been Utilised?
As of the end of 2019, no State reported a utilisation of over 50% of the fund. And only two states, Uttarakhand and Mizoram, had utilised around 50% of the funds allocated to them. According to the data released by NCRB in 2015, Madhya Pradesh has the highest number of rape reports among all Indian states.
On studying the past seven years, in 2015-16, one may find that Madhya Pradesh received its first funding to set up one-stop centres and women helplines. Since then, Madhya Pradesh has received close to Rs 75.58 crores from the Nirbhaya Fund. However, only Rs 14.61 crores from this allotted money have been used by the government so far.
The Madhya Pradesh government has, in the past 4-5 years, used just above 22% of the funding they have received from the Central Government. This 22.3%, or Rs 14.6 crores, has been used for victim compensation, cyber crime prevention against women and children, and setting up 50 one-stop centers across the State.
The MP government has not submitted any utilisation certificate for other schemes for which they have taken money from the central government. These schemes include:
- Emergency Response Support System
- Women helplines
- Mahila Police Volunteers
- Smart and safe cities free from violence against women and girls programme
What Does This Mean?
Looking at the above data, there are certain conclusions we can draw:
- First, the MP government has enough funding, but is not investing it in schemes that have the potential to change the lives of thousands of women.
- Secondly, the portion of the fund being invested is being invested in schemes that provide assistance after a woman faces sexual violence. There is no focus on the prevention of the crime.
- Thirdly, despite the high instances of rape reported in Madhya Pradesh, the State government has not yet set up fast track courts.
Madhya Pradesh has been consistently topping the list of the number of rapes reported annually. This number has not dipped since the Nirbhaya Fund was allocated and put to use, which comes as no surprise as the fund is being terribly under-utilised.
Is The Centre Even Approving Funds?
This question arises after Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal dismissed a statement by the Women and Child Development Ministry. The Ministry claimed that Delhi spent only Rs 19 crores out of the allotted Rs 390 crores from the Nirbhaya Fund in early December 2019. However, Kejriwal alleged that no such funding was authorised to the Delhi Government. He said that they did receive around Rs 65 crores for setting up one-stop centres for rape victims and have already established one.
The Centre also rejected a proposal by the Delhi Government to use the Nirbhaya Fund to install panic buttons and CCTV cameras in 5,500 DTC and cluster buses to improve women’s safety on buses. So, is it possible that when a State government does want to take some developmental steps and undertake to improve the safety of women, the Centre does not approve it? Could this also be one of the reasons why the Nirbhaya Fund is so underutilised?
Should The Nirbhaya Fund Exist?
Something like the Nirbhaya Fund could be used to improve the lives of millions of women across the country if used properly. It could be used to create structural changes, such as increasing the number of fast track courts around the country so that cases that have been in the system for decades can be given justice, and fewer cases are carried forward to the next years.
It could be used to create changes like sensitising and training both medical and police personnel in helping a survivor and minimising the risk of trauma. It’s important to understand that only two states have used 50% of the fund allocated to them, which is also not enough. Violence and sexual assault against women is one of the major problems in India, and it cannot be combated when governments are this lackadaisical about approaching this problem.
As long as our country keeps pouring taxpayer money into things like defence and advertisement (between 65-90% of the funds allocated for the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao scheme were used for advertisement) instead of actually investing into public safety, sensitisation and education, women will never be safe in this country, no matter how many Nirbhaya Funds are created.