Opposition parties claimed that the government was not taking crimes against women and children seriously. (PTI/File)The ongoing session of the state Assembly on Monday witnessed chaotic scenes as both the Congress and the BJP attacked the Naveen Patnaik-led BJD government over the cases of crimes against women and children in the state and for claiming that the state’s law and order is under control.
According to a response by the state Women and Child Development Ministry filed in the Odisha Assembly, around 602 children have gone missing this year till March.
Opposition parties claimed that the government was not taking crimes against women and children seriously. “504 girls are currently missing in Odisha. Roughly seven girls are getting raped in a day, many of them minors. The CM is saying the law and order situation is under control. He should resign because he is unable to govern the state,” said Congress leader Tara Prasad Bahinipati.
“He (CM) may win votes due to muscle and money power, but here our mothers and daughters are not safe,” he added.
The BJP also took shots against the state government. “Recently, an eight-year-old girl was gang-raped and killed. We have drawn the attention of the government to the cases of missing children, both boys and girls, from 2016 to 2019. The government is not taking this matter seriously. If such things happened in their families, then they would realise,” said the Leader of Opposition Pradipta Naik.
In a separate reply given by the Union Women and Child Development Ministry, over the past five years, Odisha is shown to have used only Rs 2.86 crore (8.3 pct) of over Rs 34 crore provided under the Nirbhaya Fund for enhancing safety measures for women in the state.
According to the Ministry, the Nirbhaya Fund Framework provides for a non-lapsable corpus fund for 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.
The Central funds were for projects that included an Emergency Response Support System (Rs 9.48 crore), a Central Victim Compensation Fund (Rs 10.6 crore) and a One Stop Centre Scheme (Rs 10 crore). The remaining funds were to be used for Prevention of Cyber Crime against Women and Children and Universalisation of Women Helpline. “The state has used more funds than demonstrated, but has not submitted the Utilisation Certificates for certain projects for some years,” said an official in the state WCD department.
