Nirbhay Chetna Launched to Boost Women's Safety

By: Women Entrepreneurs Review Team | Tuesday, 23 June 2026

The Ministry of Panchayati Raj has launched the Nirbhay Chetna training module during a three-day Training of Trainers (ToT) program held in New Delhi, marking a significant step towards strengthening gender-responsive governance and promoting women's safety at the grassroots level.

This work is being undertaken under the Nirbhaya Fund project and aims to sensitize men relating to issues of women safety, dignity, equality and security. The program has a goal to promote gender sensitive leadership among elected leaders and local governance institutions nationwide through structured training and awareness building.

The Ministry says Nirbhay Chetna is a national movement which aims to inspire men to make a positive difference in their attitudes and behaviors and involve them in creating safer and inclusive communities. The program aims to enable the local leaders to learn about gender-related problems and develop their skills to help them to solve the issues in a way that women can effectively and safely engage in public life.

The first cohort of the Training of Trainers includes approximately 40 master trainers from 6 states: Assam, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha and Uttarakhand. These trainers will be very important in the (cascading) train the trainer’s model, where they will train more trainers and elected representatives on the ground level in their respective states. The Ministry plans to gradually expand the program to cover all States and Union Territories.

Conferring with the participants, Secretary of the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, Vivek Bharadwaj spoke about the significance of the safety of women and their equal role in the vision of Viksit Bharat. He said the path towards becoming a developed country was incomplete if ensuring the dignity, security and equal opportunities to women was not being covered.

Key Highlights:

• Nirbhay Chetna module launched to promote gender-sensitive leadership and women's safety at the grassroots
• 40 master trainers from six states will lead the program's nationwide expansion
• 28,500 trainers will train over 17 lakh male Panchayat representatives under the Nirbhay Raho initiative

He also highlighted the contribution of Panchayati Raj Institutions towards development of social change. Being the closest government to the rural population, Panchayats have the potential to shape their attitudes, promote inclusive decision making processes, and promote gender equality through their engagement in the community and through effective governance.

The aim of the program in the words of Bharatay Varadwaj, Nirbhay Chetna is to promote gender-sensitive leadership by keeping gender issues based on dignity, safety and opportunities at the core of the development process. He noted that for meaningful social change to be achieved, not only policy interventions were needed, but behavioral change, particularly among men who hold leadership positions in the local governance arena.

The Nirbhay Raho initiative, which was launched on 11 March 2026, is a part of Nirbhay Chetna, the Ministry added. The bigger initiative aims to raise awareness and institutional capability at the Panchayati Raj level to foster gender equality and a safer environment for women.

As an integral part of this, the government is training 28,500 Master Trainers at the state, district and block level across the country. These trainers will eventually touch over 17 lakh elected heads of Panchayats in the country, making it one of the biggest gender sensitization programs under local governance in India.

At the grassroots level, the Ministry hopes to enhance grassroots governance through increasing accountability, addressing gender sensitivity, and greater community involvement; both of these are facilitated with the introduction of the training module and the implementation of the cascading training model. The project is hoped to help make the villages safer and more inclusive, and to fulfill the government's overall policy of women's empowerment and sustainable rural development.