It’s been over a year since 25-year-old Divya registered for antenatal care at a Corporation hospital in Adyar. Ever since the birth of her baby, she struggled to get the maternity benefit. “I initially received a sum of Rs. 4,000 and nothing after that. Now I have given up,” said Divya, a resident of R.K. Puram, near Greenways Road. She is now pregnant with her second child.
“Most women in the State go through the same ordeal,” said Nirmala Selvam, member of the Breastfeeding Promotion Network of India. “Worse, many poor woman in urban and semi-urban localities are not even aware of the benefits,” she added.
As per the National Food Security Act, 2013, every pregnant woman and lactating mother shall be entitled to nutritional support and maternity benefit of not less than Rs. 6,000, in such instalments as may be prescribed by the Central government.
In Tamil Nadu, this benefit is extended through Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddy Maternity Benefit Scheme, with an objective of providing assistance to pregnant women/mothers below the poverty line, to meet expenses on their nutritious diet, compensate for loss of income during motherhood and to avoid low birth weight of newborn babies.
The assistance of Rs. 12,000 per beneficiary has been given since June 1, 2011, in three instalments on conditional basis and restricted to two deliveries.
From October 1, 2012, benefits under the scheme were being disbursed directly to the bank account of the beneficiaries through the electronic clearing system.
For getting the first instalment of Rs. 4,000, women, by the seventh month, have to undergo blood grouping, haemoglobin, ultra sonogram and blood sugar tests. This is done with the help of urban/village health nurses, who look out for pregnant women in their jurisdiction. The second is given within two weeks of delivery and the third instalment after proper immunisation of the child. The Tamil Nadu Forum for Crèche and Child Care Services, an NGO, conducted a research study on 434 mothers who had registered under the scheme in the months of June – July 2015, at Erode, Pudukottai, Tirunelveli, Tiruvannamalai, Vellore and Dharmapuri districts. “It was revealed that out of those who registered in 2014-2015, only 87 per cent received the first instalment of the benefit, 71 per cent received the second and only 64 percent received the third instalment,” said K. Shanmugavelayutham, convener, TN-FORCES. “Many have also had to bribe the village health nurses to get the benefits,” he alleged.
