A Mumbai police official on Sunday made a shocking revelation about the Nirbhaya Fund being diverted and used for VIP security of politicians and ministers in Maharashtra. In a statement to PTI, the police official said that some of the vehicles procured by the Mumbai Police earlier this year under the Nirbhaya Fund to deal with the crime against women are currently being used for providing Y-plus security to the MLAs and MPs of the Shiv Sena faction led by Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde.
The vehicles being diverted include 220 Boleros, 35 Ertigas, 313 Pulsar motorcycles and 200 Activa two-wheelers purchased at a cost of Rs 30 crore corpus that it had received under the Nirbhaya fund.
Unfortunately, this is not the first time that the Nirbhaya Funds, which were carved to maintain the basic infrastructure for women’s safety after the horrific 2012 Delhi Gangrape Case, were misused by the state governments previously and repeatedly.
In various reports, it has been established that the Nirbhaya Funds ever since its advent have been underutilised. This also speaks volumes about the state of rising crimes against women and their compromised safety in India. According to the latest NCRB data, at least 86 women were raped every day in the country.
To understand the crisis here’s all you need to know about the Nirbhaya Fund, the misuse and underuse of the fund by the states.
What is Nirbhaya Fund?
The Nirbhaya Fund is a Rs 1000 crore fund set aside to invest in schemes and facilities for the empowerment, safety and security of women and girl children. It has been given to the state governments by the Centre since 2013 to implement such schemes.
The Fund was created against the backdrop of the brutal 2012 Nirbhaya gangrape and was named after it.
Nirbhaya Fund misused by Eknath Shinde government
According to PTI, the vehicles procured by the money from Nirbhaya Fund in June this year were distributed to all 97 police stations, cyber, traffic and coastal police units in July.
“Of these vehicles, 47 Boleros were requisitioned from several police stations by the Motor Transport Department of the Mumbai Police following an order from the VIP Security section of the state police stating that they are required for use as escort vehicles for MPs and MLAs of the Shinde faction to provide Y-Plus security cover to them,” PTI quoted a Mumbai police official as saying.
When the Jharkhand govt misused Nirbhaya funds
Before Maharashtra, it was Jharkhand that put women’s safety at bay and utilised the money from the Nirbhaya Fund for road safety projects.
A road safety activist Kamaljeet Singh, who is associated with the National Road Safety Council alleged that the Jharkhand state transport department indulged in corruption and awarded a Rs 9-crore project under the Nirbhaya Fund for women’s safety to a Mumbai-based company, which forged its work experience.
Nirbhaya’s mother alleged irregularities in Nirbhaya Fund
Earlier, Nirbhaya’s mother Asha Devi while addressing a programme in Uttar Pradesh to pay tributes to her daughter said that the government is misusing the funds set aside for women’s safety in the name of Nirbhaya Fund.
She alleged that the government is installing cameras and building roads with that money while conveniently avoiding the issue of women’s safety.
Underutilisation of Nirbhaya Fund: Women’s safety not a priority?
According to the data released in 2019, only about 20 per cent of the funds released by the Union Women and Child Development Ministry, were used by the states.
In the case of the Union home ministry, the states have submitted utilisation certificates of less than 9 per cent of money released under the Nirbhaya Fund – Rs 146.98 crore of Rs 1,656.71 crore, respectively, in the past five years at the time.
