Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath requested the central government to support his initiative.

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath has met Home Minister Amit Shah and asked him to release over Rs 800 crore as central grant to check crime against women and children in his state more effectively.

Some other issues related to the state were discussed during the Sunday meeting, officials said on Monday.

Mr Nath, who took over as the chief minister in December, has also written a letter to the Home Minister in this regard.

In the letter, he drew the home minister's attention towards one of the sensitive issues of the crime against women and children.

"Considering the sensitivity of this issue, the state government is proposing a project for comprehensive set up of investigating officers/legal advisors/prosecutors and counsellors apart from DNA laboratories and mobile forensic teams exclusively for dealing with the crime against women and children. The budget outlay required is Rs 880 crore," Mr Nath said.

He requested the home minister to support this initiative as "this will help in dealing with one of the most sensitive issues in the state".

In a horrific incident, an eight-year-old girl was raped and murdered in Madhya Pradesh's capital Bhopal earlier this month.

According to a latest data of National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), as many as 34,651 cases of rape were registered in 2015. The number increased to 38,947 in 2016.

Overall crimes against women rose from 3,29,243 in 2015 to 3,38,954 in 2016, according to the NCRB data.

The highest number of rapes has been reported from Madhya Pradesh (4,882), followed by Uttar Pradesh (4,816) and Maharashtra (4,189) in 2016, it said.

Madhya Pradesh has reported 6,016 cases of kidnapping and abduction of children in 2016, the data said. There were 2,467 cases of child rape in the state in 2016.