PMO wants Nirbhaya Fund push for Safe City initiative

The Prime Minister's Office has asked the Women and Child Development (WCD) Ministry to devise ways in which the Nirbhaya Fund can be diverted to the Safe Cities initiative, instead of the current system where amounts from the Fund is allocated to different states and ministries for women safety projects.

The Safe Cities initiative, launched by the home ministry in 2017, aims to make eight cities — Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Lucknow and Hyderabad — safe for women, through various projects, including installation of CCTV cameras, mapping of dark and vulnerable spots, emergency response systems, etc.

In the last review meeting of the Empowered Committee of the Nirbhaya Fund, chaired by the Principal Secretary to the PM Nripendra Mishra, the idea was mooted, said a senior official of the WCD ministry. The ministry was asked to explore the possibility of diverting the Fund to the Safe Cities initiative. Each city will likely be given Rs 250-300 crore under the project.

Any amount of the corpus that remains after allocation for Safe Cities will be distributed among states and ministries as per the proposals that are sent to the WCD ministry.

WCD officials have earlier complained of several states sending either frivolous proposals or sending projects proposals that should ideally be taken up by States themselves. Sprucing up police stations, bus stations, etc., are some of the proposals that have irked the ministry.

The women safety corpus, formed in December 2012 in the aftermath of the gangrape-murder of a paramedic, has been plagued by complaints of underutilisation. The non-lapsable fund, which was given an allocation of Rs 500 crore in Budget 2017-18, amounts to Rs 3,100 crore currently. As per a recent RTI, only 30% of the Fund has been utilised till now.

Safety first

• The Safe Cities initiative aims to make eight cities, including Delhi and Mumbai, safe for women
• Each city will likely be given Rs 250-300 crore under the project
• The non-lapsable fund, was given an allocation of Rs 500 cr in 2017-18 Budget
• As per a recent RTI, only 30% of the fund has been utilised till now