Union Budget 2017: Major focus on women’s security

New Delhi: The Delhi police has been allocated more than eight time the amount under the Nirbhaya fund to enhance women safety measures in the national capital.

In his budgetary allocation, Union finance minister Arun Jaitely allocated Rs 28.90 crore against last year’s Rs 3.40 crore. The Central government had allocated about Rs 1,000 crore under the Nirbhaya Fund scheme for women safety measures across the country in the current fiscal. Of this amount, a major chunk has remained unspent, leading to large-scale criticism of various government agencies for their non-serious approach.

As far as Delhi is concerned, the city government has already opened three one-stop rape crisis centres in different government hospitals. The government intends to open one centre each in all the nine districts in the city.

The Delhi police has been allocated Rs 6378.18 crore in the Union Budget for the next fiscal, an increase of Rs 464 crore over the current year aimed at sprucing up traffic infrastructure, induction of latest technology and capacity building of the force

The Nirbhaya fund was created in remembrance of a paramedic student from Delhi who was brutally raped in a moving bus on January 16, 2012. A few days after the incident, the victim couldn’t sustain the injuries and she died. The DCW has been asking the Union government to decentralise the Nirbhaya fund so that states can use to effectively curb crimes against women.

The Centre had earlier rejected the utilisation of Nirbhaya fund for installation of CCTV cameras in DTC buses, citing that that the proposal was ‘gender neutral’.