Nirbhaya Fund

• Government of India has set up a dedicated fund called Nirbhaya Fund for implementation of initiatives aimed at enhancing the safety and security of women in the country.
• It is a non-lapsable corpus fund, being administered by Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance.
• Under the Nirbhaya Fund, the proposed projects should have the features like direct impact on safety and security concerns of women, optimum use of existing infrastructure, innovative use of technology, no duplication of existing government schemes/ programmes, provision for real time intervention as far as possible. strict privacy and confidentiality of women’s identity and information and defined monitoring mechanism.
• The Central Ministries/Departments, States/UTs, Autonomous and other Government Bodies can submit proposals as per the prescribed procedure.
• Ministry of Women and Child Development is the nodal authority for appraisal of the schemes/proposals received under Nirbhaya Fund.
• The initial corpus of the fund was Rs.1000 Crores. However by September 2020, Centre has released an amount of Rs 3,024.46 crore under the Nirbhaya fund out of which states have utilised Rs 1,919.11 crore.

PRELIMS QUESTION

Consider the following statements regarding Nirbhaya fund:
1.It is a non-lapsable fund administered by ministry of home affairs.
2.Only States/UTs can submit proposals for funding under the scheme.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
(a)1 only
(b)2 only
(c)Both 1 and 2
(d)Neither 1 nor 2    

 Answer to prelims question