General Knowledge

[GK] Nirbhaya Fund

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Contents

  • Who is Nirbhaya?

  • What is Nirbhaya Fund?

  • Objectives Of Nirbhaya Fund

  • Schemes 

Who is Nirbhaya?

Nirbhaya (meaning fearless) is the pseudonym given by media & public (to hide identity) to a 23 year old female physiotherapy intern who was brutally beaten and gang raped in a private bus in which she was travelling with her friend. This incident shook whole of the country. Well in the end Justice prevailed and all the adult accused were given death statements listing this case to be the rarest of rare.

What is Nirbhaya Fund?

As I noted that this incident shook whole of the India resulting in public protests all over the country against Government of India and Government of Delhi for not providing adequate security for women. So this whole protest inspired government to do something and they came up with NIRBHAYA FUND. It is Rs 1000 Crore corpus announced by GOI in its 2013 Union Budget.

Objectives

According to our Finance Minister P. Chidambaram this fund is expected to support initiatives by the government & NGOs working towards protecting the dignity & ensuring safety of women in India. Ministries and departments concerned were requested to formulate prposals to utilize the resources.

So this fund is allocated basically for ensuring the women safety in India but how??

Schemes Under Nirbhaya Fund

Being unused for a year as the media says

 

Ministry of Finance approved three proposals to utilise the fund to enhance security of women in India.

#1st proposal is of the Ministry of Home Affairs(Minister?) designed in consultation with Ministry of Information Technology(Minister?). Integration of police administration with the mobile phone networkt trace and respond to distress calls with min respond time. Mobile phone manufacturers will be introducing SOS alert button on the instruction issued by Ministry of IT. This scheme will be launched in 157 cities.

#2nd proposal is by Ministry of Road Transport & Highway(Minister?) entailing a  scheme for ‘security of women in road transport in the country’ covering 32 towns each with population of over one million.

The scheme would entail Public Transport Vehicles to compulsorily have GPS for tracking and enforcement. Control rooms in every cities having more than one million population to track public transport vehicles, PTB will have CCTVs to record events. Passenger Information System through smart phones, displays on Bus stops etc, IVR, Text and Email based complaint system for transport, scrutiny and constant review of every public transport vehicle & driver, women enforcement wing in transport department, more women drivers & conductors -training and licensing & awareness campaign are also part of this scheme.

#3rd propoasal is by Ministry of Railways(Minister??) involves a pilot scheme of setting up of SOS alert system in train in select zones.

Besides the above three schemes  Ministry of Women & Child Welfare has drawn up a national plan under the Nirbhaya Fund named SHUBH. According to Women & Child Development Minister Krishna Tirath said on Wednesday: “ Shubh is aimed at mapping vulnerabilities and identifying areas and categories of women who need special protection measures such as women in prostitution or widowed women.”