siasat.com
New Delhi: The Nirbhaya Fund was created in 2013 in the aftermath of December 2012 Delhi gang rape case.
The government had proposed an allocation of Rs 10,000 crore under Nirbhaya Fund to ensure safety of women. Six years later it is difficult out whether any woman would say that the Fund has made her shed her fears harassment and rape.
Following the gruesome rape and murder of a Telangana veterinarian woman questions about the safety of girls and women are being raised again. The data issued by the government revealed that more than 91% of the Nirbhaya Fund which was granted for States and Union Territories for women’s safety has remained unused.
As per the data, the corpus transferred to the Public Account for the Nirbhaya Fund up to 2018-19 was Rs 3,600 crore out of which since 2015, the BJP-led central government was only able to release Rs 1,513.40 crore till December 2018.
| State/Union Territory | Funds Sanctioned | Funds Used (in %) |
| Maharashtra | Rs 14940 Lakh | Nil |
| Manipur | Rs 878 Lakh | Nil |
| Tripura | Rs 766 lakh | Nil |
| Meghalaya | Rs 675 Lakh | Nil |
| Daman and Diu | Rs 420 Lakh | Nil |
| Telangana | Rs 10300 Lakh | 4% |
| Delhi | Rs 39000 Lakh | 5% |
The Central government, last year has appraised projects on safe city worth Rs 2,919.55 crore under the Nirbhaya Fund for eight major cities of the country to make them safer for women.
However, only Rs 439.10 crore has been released for the project for making Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad and Lucknow safer for women.