The incidence of crime against women in Uttar Pradesh has been rising consistently during last five years, said a performance audit that covers the period from 2010-11 to 2014-15.

“There has been 61 percent increase in incidence of crime against women between 2010-11 and 2014-15. The increase in crime has been very steep during 2013-14 when the number of such incidence shot up from 24,652 in 2012-13 to 31,810 in 2013-14. The incidence of crime against women have not declined in 2014-15,” said report No 3 of 2016 – Performance Audit on Empowerment of Women Government of Uttar Pradesh.

The incidence of crime against women in India has been increasing continuously with 2.13 lakh cases reported in 2010 which rose to 3.37 lakh cases in 2014, registering a growth of 58 percent in last four years.

According to the report of National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) for the year 2014, Uttar Pradesh earned the dubious distinction of leading the list of states where crime against women in 2014 was highest, accounting for 11.4 percent of the total number of incidence of crime against women in the country.

The CAG report pointed out that there was substantial increase in cases of rape (43 percent) and kidnapping and abduction of girls/women (21 percent) during 2013-14 as compared to previous year. 59 percent of the victims of rape and 71 percent of victims of kidnapping and abduction were minor girls.

“The cases of torture – both mental and physical – increased from 7302 in 2010-11 to 9476 in 2014-15. There has been significant increase of 24 per cent in 2013-14 over the previous year. The cases of assault on women with intent to outrage her modesty have increased from 2989 in 2010-11 to 7972 in 2014-15. Maximum number (55 percent) of victims for the crime were minor girls. In the year 2013-14 there was an increase of 73 percent in the cases of assault on women with intent to outrage her modesty over the previous year.”

The CAG report went on to say that Uttar Pradesh has also been performing poorly in removing gender inequalities/disparities and ranked 26 amongst all Indian states with sex ratio of only 908 females per 1000 males as per 2011 Census. The maternal mortality rate (292 per one lakh live births) of the state was much above the all India average (178) and at approximately three times higher than the UN Millennium Development Goals, 2015 (109).

Also, every second child in the state is undernourished and 52 percent of pregnant women were anaemic as per data maintained by State Nutrition Mission.

The report said that Uttar Pradesh had declared State Women Policy in 2006, accepting the principle of gender based budgeting for introduction from the year 2005-06. The UP government, however, failed to adopt the gender based budgeting even after 10 years of its declaration of the policy.

In various schemes related to empowerment of women such as Pre-Conception and Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection), Medical Termination of Pregnancy, Maternal Death Review, Family Planning, Kishori Shakti Yojna and Uttar Pradesh Victim Compensation Scheme, “there were significant savings ranging from 46 to 100 percent indicating non-achievement of targets/goals in respect of these schemes due to lack of proper planning and inefficient implementation by implementing agencies and ineffective monitoring by the governance structure”.

The CAG report observed that the steep decline in the child sex ratio in the state is becoming an area of serious concern which needs to be addressed by the government on priority.

On Pre-Conception and Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act, 1994, the centre allotted only 35 percent funds against the requirement of Rs 20.26 crore projected by the state during 2010-14, against which the state government could utilise only 54 percent (Rs 3.86 crore) of the meagre allocation of Rs 7.09 crore made during 2010-14 indicating inadequate implementation of the Act.

With regard to Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971, the report said that only 11 percent of the total funds allocated (Rs 4,058.12 lakh) for MTP purposes during 2010-15 could be utilised by the department due to non-procurement of kits and equipment required for MTP.

“Only six percent of 773 Community Health Centres (CHCs) in the state were having MTP facilities. As a result, majority of women in rural areas had no access to safe abortion services at affordable cost and at reasonable distance from their habitations.”

On maternal mortality, the CAG report said that the target for institutional deliveries was only 1.24 crore (46 percent of registered pregnant women) during 2010-15 indicating that majority of rural women had to depend on home deliveries by unskilled birth attendants due to non-affordability of private nursing homes and lack of access to government institutions.

“Target fixed for females (tubectomy) was 20 times higher than the target fixed for males (vasectomy); while achievement for tubectomy was 41 times of the achievement for vasectomy in terms of absolute numbers.”