Rs 1,273 cr Nirbhaya Fund lying unused

As much as 1,273.31 crore is lying unused under Nirbhaya Fund set up two years back in the wake of the brutal gang-rape of a young girl on December 16, 2012, Parliament was informed today.
Replying to a question in Lok Sabha, Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi said that a total amount of Rs 3,000 crore was allocated to Nirbhaya Fund in 2013-2014, 2014-15 and 2015-16.
Two proposals have been approved so far under the fund by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs.
Ministry of Road Transport and Highways's proposal on 'Security for women in Public Road Transport in the country' with an estimated cost of Rs 1,405 crore and a proposal of Ministry of Home Affairs for establishing an emergency response system to attend women in distress with an estimated cost of Rs 321.69 crore, were approved.

Accordingly, an amount of Rs 150 crore and Rs 50 crore were provided to the Home and Road ministries respectively for their sanctioned projects in 2014-15, the Minister said.
Apart from this, two schemes of WCD, namely One Stop Centre for Women affected by violence with a total project cost of Rs 18.58 crore and Scheme for Universalisation of Women Helpline with a total project cost Rs 69.49 crore have been approved to be funded under Nirbhaya Fund for implementation for the 2015-16 financial year.
The government has assigned WCD Ministry as the nodal agency to appraise the scheme to decide their suitability to qualify for getting funds from the Nirbhaya Fund and to review and monitor the progress of schemes sanctioned under the Fund. However, no proposal has been received in this regard since then.

"After being assigned as nodal ministry to appraise the schemes, the WCD Ministry has not received any proposal from state or UTs including Delhi," the Minister said.