New Delhi: The Delhi government has requested the Centre to disburse over Rs 11 crore from the Nirbhaya Fund for the illumination of over a thousand dark spots in the capital with a view to enhancing women’s safety, Lieutenant-Governor Anil Baijal was told here on Thursday. The Nirbhaya fund was set up by the Centre in 2013 after the horrific Nirbhaya Gang rape in 2012, with the purpose of ensuring women’s safety with an annual allocation of Rs 1,000 crore.
Sources, however, said that fund utilisation has been abysmal so far, with only a few states spending money on measures to enhance women’s security. Delhi government, said officials, had earlier sought disbursal of Nirbhaya funds for the installation of CCTV cameras and making provisions for GPS and panic alarms. Sources, however, claimed that the Centre had refused the funds for those purposes.
A senior Delhi government official said that the additional chief secretary (home) has spoken to the joint secretary in the ministry of home affairs for early sanction of money. An NGO which has specialised skills and experience to find out the infrastructural gap in the way of women’s safety had earlier conducted a survey and identified 421 stretches with close to 40,000 dark spots across the capital.
While most of the spots identified by the NGO have been illuminated, a few falling under the jurisdiction of North DMC and South DMC were left due to fund constraints. A total of 77 cases of molestation have been registered in Delhi in the year 2021, while 354 cases of rape of women, adolescent girls and girls have been registered. Poor performing states in using Nirbhaya Fund are Maharashtra - 0%, Uttar Pradesh - 2%, Delhi- 3%, Tamil Nadu- 3%, West Bengal - 5%. While states like Uttarakhand - 50%Mizoram - 50%Chhattisgarh - 43%Nagaland - 39%Haryana - 32% remained the best performer.
Read: Centre releases details of Nirbhaya funded projects since 2014
