Centre to continue women’s safety scheme till 2025-26, grants Rs 1,179 cr

The Centre has decided to continue its flagship scheme for women safety with an approval of ₹1,179.72 crore till 2025-26.

The Union Cabinet took the decision on Wednesday night (February 21) in an effort to check incidents of crime against women in the country.

According to the latest record of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), a total of 4,45,256 cases of crime against women were registered across India in 2022 - almost 51 FIRs every hour on an average.

The figure was 4,28,278 in 2021 and 3,71,503 in 2020.

A meeting of the Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, approved the proposal of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) for the continuation of the implementation of the umbrella scheme on "Safety of Women" at a total cost of ₹1,179.72 crore from 2021-22 to 2025-26, an official release said.

Of the total project outlay of ₹1,179.72 crore, an amount of ₹885.49 crore will be provided by the MHA from its own budget and ₹294.23 crore will be channelised from the Nirbhaya Fund.

Safety of women depends on several factors

The safety of women in a country is an outcome of several factors, such as stringent deterrence through strict laws, effective delivery of justice, redressal of complaints in a timely manner, and easily accessible institutional support structures to the victims, the release said.

Stringent deterrence in matters related to offences against women has been provided through amendments in the Indian Penal Code (IPC), Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), and Indian Evidence Act.

In its efforts towards women safety, the Centre, in collaboration with the states and Union territories, has launched several projects.

The objectives of these projects include strengthening mechanisms in the states for ensuring timely intervention and investigation in the cases of crimes against women and higher efficiency in the investigation and crime prevention in such matters.

Centre to continue several projects

The Centre has proposed to continue a number of projects under the umbrella scheme for "Safety of Women".

These are - Emergency Response Support System (ERSS) 2.0, upgradation of the central forensic sciences laboratories, including the setting up of the National Forensic Data Centre, and strengthening DNA analysis and cyber-forensic capacities in the state forensic sciences laboratories (FSLs).

The projects include cyber crime prevention against women and children, capacity building and training of investigators and prosecutors in handling sexual-assault cases against women and children, and women help desk and anti-human trafficking units.

According to the NCRB data, the rate of crime against women per one-lakh population stood at 66.4, while the chargesheeting in such cases was logged at 75.8.

Annual crime report of NCRB

Most of the cases of crimes against women lodged under IPC sections were for "cruelty by husband or his relatives" (31.4 per cent), followed by "kidnapping and abduction of women" (19.2 per cent), "assault on women with intent to outrage her modesty" (18.7 per cent) and "rape" (7.1 per cent), according to the data in the annual crime report of the NCRB, which functions under the MHA.

According to the data tabled in Parliament last year, more than 13.13 lakh young girls and women went missing in the country in three years (from 2019 to 2021) and the highest number of such incidents was reported from Madhya Pradesh, followed by West Bengal.

In Madhya Pradesh, 1,60,180 women and 38,234 girls went missing in the three years.

A total of 1,56,905 women and 36,606 girls went missing from West Bengal in 2019, 2020 and 2021. In Maharashtra, 1,78,400 women and 13,033 girls went missing in the said period.

In Odisha, 70,222 women and 16,649 girls went missing in the three years, while 49,116 women and 10,817 girls went missing from Chhattisgarh in the said period.

(With agency inputs)