Critically evaluate how well the Nirbhaya Fund and the Safe City Projects have made public spaces safer for women.

The Nirbhaya Fund is the Union's dedicated fund for women's safety. Its flagship use is the Safe City Projects, which cover eight metros at a cost of ₹2,919.55 crore [4]. The two have built visible safety infrastructure. They have not yet turned it into reliably safer public spaces.

Achievements

• Ring-fenced money: The fund pays only for women-safety projects. The MHA's Women Safety Division coordinates the work with States and UTs [7].
• Technology in public spaces: The projects run in Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Lucknow and Mumbai. They use CCTV, drones, ANPR, smart lighting, crime hot-spot mapping and women's toilets that can be found on Google Maps [3].
• Tracking tools: ITSSO tracks investigations of sexual offences. The Safe City Implementation Monitoring Portal tracks how far each project has progressed [6].
• Cooperative federalism: The Union and States share costs 60:40. Delhi's project is fully Union-funded [2].

Shortcomings

• Money not spent: In 2020, the Standing Committee on HRD found ₹7,436 crore set aside for 32 projects. Only ₹2,647 crore had been released [5].
• A pilot that never ended: Safe City began in 2018 as a three-year pilot and has been extended repeatedly [2]. With no outcome evaluation, it can be neither scaled up nor fixed.
• Catching offenders, not preventing crime: In October 2026, the Supreme Court noted that cameras help catch culprits but cannot prevent crime. It directed Delhi Police to set up 24-hour monitoring cells and to patrol near colleges, where harassment continues [1].
• Counting outputs, not outcomes: Progress is measured in cameras installed. Response time and whether women feel safer are not measured.
• Privacy: Constant surveillance must pass the proportionality test of Puttaswamy (2017) and must not become moral policing.

Overall, the schemes have built the hardware of safety but not the staffing, response and evaluation needed to make it work. The way forward has three parts. First, set up the Cabinet Secretary-led oversight the Standing Committee recommended [5]. Second, staff command centres to watch crime hot-spots. Third, publish city-wise outcome data. Together these would turn spending into real safety, in line with Articles 15(3) and 21 and SDG 5.2.