Four states of the Northeast have not utilized a single penny of the Nirbhaya Fund allocated to them by the Centre.
The states are Manipur, Meghalaya, Sikkim and Tripura.
This was revealed in a recently released report by the Ministry of Women And Child Development.
As per the report, a total of Rs 2934.09 lakh was allocated to these four states by the Home Ministry under the Nirbhaya Fund.
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Apart from these four states, the other four states of the Northeast – Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Nagaland – have used only a small portion of the Nirbhaya Fund that had been granted to them.
Launched in 2013 by the Congress-led UPA government, the Nirbhaya Fund was introduced for implementation of initiatives aimed at enhancing the safety and security of women in the country.
The Nirbhaya Fund was introduced following the horrific gang rape and murder of a physiotherapist in 2012.
The victim had been christened as ‘Nirbhaya’ or ‘fearless’ by the media.
As per the Ministry of Women And Child Development report, over 90 per cent of the money sanctioned to the states and union territories by the Home Ministry remains unused.