Around 70% of money allocated for Nirbhaya Fund utilised so far, Centre tells House

NEW DELHI: The government on Wednesday informed Parliament that under the Nirbhaya Fund, upto the financial year 2023-24, Rs 7,212.8 crore has been allocated and the money released by ministries and departments and utilised out of the Nirbhaya fund since inception stands at Rs 5,118.9 crore which is approximately 70% of the total allocation.

The break-up of funds released or utilised shows a wide range of projects from across sectors. For instance Rs 364 crore was released for setting up the Emergency Response Support System-112 and Rs 200 crore for creation of central victim compensation fund around Rs 1,434 crore was channelised into the safe city proposal for eight cities - Delhi, Lucknow, Mumbai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai. Around Rs 734 crore have been allocated and utilised for setting up of fast track special courts project that has been extended till 2025-26.

The data was shared by the minister for women and child development Smriti Irani in a written response to questions in Rajya Sabha regarding under-utilisation of Nirbhaya Fund raised by Congress member Digvijay Singh and Shiv Sena MP Priyanka Chaturvedi. The MPs sought the details of amount allocated scheme-wise and utilised under the Nirbhaya fund; reasons for under-utilisation and steps taken by the government to prevent and remedy the same.

The minister informed the House that the projects and schemes under Nirbhaya Fund are demand driven. “The projects and schemes appraised by the empowered committee (EC) under the framework for Nirbhaya Fund has a staggered implementation schedule. Further, some of the appraised projects are directly implemented by central ministries and departments, however, the majority of the projects are implemented through state governments and Union Territory (UT) administrations, in which the central government releases the funds to States/ UTs,” she said.

The ministry of women and child has pointed out that it is possible that more funds may have been actually utilised, but utilisation certificates (UCs) and statement of expenditure (SoE), as required, as per provisions of General Financial Rules have not been received from states and implementing agencies.

“Various other factors such as time taken in getting required approvals from competent authorities, procedure to be followed for award of contract, disruptions due to unforeseen reasons such as the one created by the Covid 19 etc., also affect implementation of schemes/ projects,” the minister said.


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