BHUBANESWAR: Even as frequent cases of rape and sexual abuse continue to rock Odisha, the utlisation of funds released from the Centre to initiate measures for safety and security of women in the State has been abysmally low.
According to data made available by Union Minister for Women and Child Development (WCD) Smriti Irani to the Lok Sabha, the state has utilised less than 10 per cent of the budget allocated to it under the Nirbhaya Fund in the last five years.
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Though Odisha has received Rs 34.61 crore under five projects, only Rs 2.86 crore has been spent under One Stop Centre and Universalisation of Women Helpline schemes during the period.
Fund received from the Centre included Rs 9.48 crore for Emergency Response Support System (ERSS), Rs 10.6 crore for Central Victim Compensation Fund (CVCF) in 2016-17, Rs 2.61 crore for Cyber Crime Prevention against Women and Children (CCPWC) in 2017-18, Rs 10 crore for One Stop Centre scheme and
Rs 2 crore for Universalisation of Women Helpline between 2015-16 and 2019-20.
The Nirbhaya Fund Framework provides a non-lapsable corpus fund for security of women. The cost of projects/schemes is shared between the Centre and State in the ratio of 60:40 under the Nirbhaya Fund.
In the written reply, Irani stated that CVCF has been funded under the framework to support States/UTs for their victim compensation scheme. The CVCF is a one-time grant of top-up funds released in 2016-17.
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“No further activity remains on part of the Centre as the Supreme Court had last year directed all States/UTs to modify their victim compensation scheme in terms of the scheme prepared by the National Legal Services Authority,” Irani said.
However, the Naveen Patnaik Government, which has been very vocal about women empowerment, has failed to submit utilisation certificates (UCs) against the funds released between 2014-15 and 2018-19. The statistics revealed that the Government has not submitted UCs for ERSS, CVCF and CCPWC projects.
However, the State is yet to receive the appraised amount of Rs 110.35 crore from the Centre for ‘Safe City Project’ in Commissionerate Police.
The State has also not received any assistance for strengthening forensic science laboratories for which 12 other States and Delhi have been allocated funds besides the Mahila police volunteer scheme.
The ‘Nirbhaya Fund’ was set up by the WCD Ministry in 2013 in the wake of the brutal gang rape of a paramedical student in a moving bus in Delhi.
Odisha has reported 12,996 rape cases in the last six years with 2,502 cases last year, followed by 2,286 in 2015, 2,221 in 2017, 2,144 in 2016 and 2,011 cases in 2014. This year till May, 937 rape cases have been recorded.