Context:
The Central government will set up One Stop Centres (OSCs) across 10 missions (Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, UAE, Jeddah and Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, Australia, Canada and Singapore) to provide assistance to Indian women who are survivors of gender-based violence.
Relevance:
GS-II: Social Justice (Issues related to women, Welfare Schemes)
Dimensions of the Article:
- About the One Stop Centers (OSC)
- Nirbhaya fund
About the One Stop Centers (OSC)
- The Ministry of Women and Child Development will set up One Stop Centres (OSCs) across Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, UAE, Jeddah and Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, Australia, Canada and Singapore.
- The Ministry of Women and Child Development will also set up 300 OSCs in the country in addition to the nearly 700 existing ones across all districts.
- The scheme of setting up OSCs was launched in 2015 and it is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme for addressing the problem of violence against women.
- It is a sub-scheme of the umbrella scheme for National Mission for Empowerment of Women including Indira Gandhi Mattritav Sahyaog Yojana.
- The main objective of the scheme is to support women affected by the violence that they may face within the family or at the workplace or within the community, in private or public places.
- Special focus of the scheme will be for women who face sexual, physical, psychological, emotional and economic abuse, irrespective of their caste, creed, race, class, education status, age, culture, or marital status.
- OSCs are funded through Nirbhaya Fund and the central government provides 100% financial assistance to the state governments/Union Territories administrations.
- The following services will be provided by the OSCs:
- Emergency response and rescue services.
- Medical assistance.
- Assistance to women in lodging the FIR.
- Psycho-social support and counselling.
- Legal aid and counselling.
- Shelter.
- Video conferencing facility.
Nirbhaya fund
- Nirbhaya fund was created in 2013 in the aftermath of December 2012 Delhi gangrape and murder case.
- Giving in to popular sentiments, the government announced a separate fund for meeting expenditures to ensure the safety of women.
- The government proposed an allocation of Rs 10,000 crore under the Nirbhaya Fund to ensure the safety of women.
- Under the Nirbhaya Fund, the Centre gives money to the states, which in turn spend it on programmes meant for ensuring women’s safety.
- The Women and Child Development Ministry is the nodal agency for expenditure from the Nirbhaya Fund.
- The ministry it examines the programmes submitted to it by the states under the Nirbhaya scheme, approves them and recommends to the Department of Economic affairs for allocating funds.
- The Nirbhaya Fund Framework provides for a non-lapsable corpus fund for the safety and security of women to be administered by the Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) of the Ministry of Finance (MoF) of the Government of India.
- Further, it provides for an Empowered Committee (EC) of officers chaired by the Secretary, Ministry of Women & Child Development (MWCD) to appraise and recommend proposals to be funded under this framework.
- The below standard funding pattern will be followed:
- 60:40 for all States normally
- 90:10 for States with difficult terrains
- 100% for UTs
- Few initiatives are 100% funded
-Source: The Hindu
