India sets up Central Victim Compensation Fund to compensate rape victims 

The Government of India has set up a Central Victim Compensation Fund under the Ministry of Home Affairs for assisting & supporting Victim Compensation Schemes of States/Union Territories with an initial corpus of Rs. 200.00 crore under the “Nirbhaya Fund”. The Scheme shall give matching support to States/UTs for victims compensated on various grounds such as loss and death with respect to acid attack, rape, human trafficking, physical abuse of children, women victims of cross-border firing suffering permanent or partial disability or death etc. The key features including aims and objectives of Central Victim Compensation Fund (CVCF) are given below:

• to support and supplement the existing Victim Compensation Schemes notified by States/UT Administrations,
• to reduce disparity in quantum of compensation amount notified by different States/UTs for victims of similar crimes, and
• to encourage States/UTs to effectively implement the Victim Compensation Scheme (VCS) notified by them under the provisions of Section 357A of Cr.P.C. and continue financial support to victims of various crime especially sexual offences including rape, acid attacks, crime against children, human trafficking etc. including women victims of cross border firing.

2. The guidelines of the Central Victim Compensation Fund (CVCF) Scheme have been circulated among all the States/UTs and are available at the website of Ministry of Home Affairs viz http://mha.nic.in

This was stated by the Minister of State for Home Affairs, Shri Haribhai Parathibhai Chaudhary in written reply to a question by Dr. Kanwar Deep Singh in the Rajya Sabha today.