Nirbhaya Fund

- Nirbhaya Fund is a dedicated fund set up by the Government of India in 2013 which can be utilized for projects specifically designed to improve the safety and security of women.
- It is a non-lapsable corpus fund administered by the Department of Economic Affairs of the Ministry of Finance.
- As per this framework, the Ministry of Finance through the Department of Economic Affairs is the nodal Ministry for any accretion into and withdrawal from the corpus, and the Ministry of Women & Child Development (WCD) is the nodal authority for appraisal of the schemes/proposals received under Nirbhaya Fund.

Funding to Non-Governmental Organisations is not envisaged under the framework.

The Nirbhaya fund is primarily meant to implement three initiatives through coordination between the WCD Ministry and the central government as well as state and union territory administrations: One-Stop Centres (OSC), Universalisation of Women Helpline (WHL), and Mahila Police Volunteers (MPV).
- The OSCs are meant to help women who are victims of violence by providing a range of services such as police, medical aid, legal aid and counselling, and psychological support under one roof.
- The WHL scheme oversees a toll-free 24X7 helpline — available at 181 — for women seeking immediate support and information in cases of violence.
- The MPV scheme, implemented by the WCD Ministry in collaboration with the Ministry of Home Affairs, seeks to identify volunteers who can act as a link between police and society at large and help report incidents of violence against women.

This information was given by the Union Minister for Women and Child Development, Smriti Zubin Irani, in a written reply in the Lok Sabha recently.

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