Only hollow promises on women safety by Congress, Rs. 1000 crore Nirbhaya Fund is lying idle: Goel

·         Death of Lab attendant highlights poor state of women safety, Congress’ insensitivity

·         Only hollow promises on women safety by Congress, Rs. 1000 crore Nirbhaya Fund is lying idle: Goel

·         No Congress minister or Chief Minister cared to visit the harassed victim

The Delhi BJP today extended its condolences to the family of Delhi University Lab Attendant who passed away this morning in a hospital succumbing to the burn injuries. It is shocking that the victim immolated herself at in front of the Chief Minister’s seat of power-Players building and the Delhi government. It is deplorable that no minister or the Chief Minister even cared to visit her.

In a joint statement issued today, the Delhi BJP President Shri Vijay Goel and BJP National Secretary Ms. Arti Mehra said, “There is no effective mechanism for redressal of cases of sexual harassment faced by women in Delhi despite the tall claims made by both the Congress government of Delhi and the Congress-led UPA government of the Centre. The women continue to be vulnerable under the present regime.”

Shri Goel said, “The Nirbhaya Fund created after December 16 incident by the Congress-led UPA government is yet to become functional. The ministries at the Centre have been fighting to have a control of the corpus of Rs. 1000 crore. This shows that the government is not serious in its intent to address the safety concerns of women. The government is doing only lip service in ensuring safety of women.”

The delay in making Nirbhaya Fund functional exposes both the UPA government and the Congress government of Delhi. After the budget announcement, a Task Force had been constituted to create an institutional mechanism for operating the Nirbhaya fund but the Task Force met only once. The Nirbhaya Fund Task Force was wound up thereafter as the Finance Ministry and the Women and Child Development Ministry fought over control of the Rs. 1000 crore purse. The Union Home Ministry, which serves as the nodal ministry for the purpose, has done nothing on this front.

Not even a single paisa has been spent from this fund so far which was meant to work for the security of women.

“We would like to ask the Chief Minister, what has she done to make Nirbhaya fund functional? To our knowledge, she has done nothing,” said Shri Goel.

Shri Goel further said, “Delhi has seen almost 240% rise in rape cases, 495.01% rise in molestation cases and 700% rise in the cases of eve teasing this year. This shows that nothing has changed on the ground in Delhi even ten months after the Nirbhaya incident and Delhi continues to be an unsafe city for women.”