Second-time mums deprived of cash benefits

Only last week, the government, in a clandestine move, made it evident that it is endorsing the ‘one child’ policy. The maternity cash benefits, the Women and Children Development Ministry said, will be extended to pregnant women and lactating mothers (PW&LMs) for their ‘first live child,’ only. Currently, under the Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY) of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, where PW&LMs get Rs 1,400 on delivering a baby in a government hospital, no such rider of ‘first live child,’ exists.

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that Rs 6,000 will be given out to each PW&LM, he did not mention that the benefit will be restricted to just one child. Following this was a National Consultation Meeting on February 22 of Women and Child Development ministry (WCD), Ministry of Health & Family Welfare (MoHFW) and Niti Aayog with all the states, which too did not have a mention of the one child norm. The clause was inserted by the government, post February 22, seemingly without consulting stakeholders.

Up to 1.5 crore women availed of the benefit of JSY in 2015-16, where the MoHFW doled out close to Rs 2,100 crore in incentives. Of the 1.5 crore women, who have availed of JSY benefits on paper, close to 30 per cent to 40 per cent (between 45 to 52 lakh) were pregnant for the first time.

The annual budget of the Maternity Benefit Programme is not more than Rs 2,644 crore every year. While the allocation increases up to Rs 6,000 per mother, the beneficiaries have drastically reduced.

There is a possibility that come April 2018, JSY will be discontinued and cash benefits will only be given to mothers who deliver their first child. If such an event comes to pass, India will have failed the majority of its mothers (60 per cent to 70 per cent) who would be pregnant for the second time.

Extending benefits for the third child is out of bounds for the government. This is acceptable. However, as India goes the China way, albeit secretively, the question arises as to how much curtailing cash benefits to poor mothers is going to help control ‘population’, — a relation that certain factions are lauding. In India, deaths of mothers while delivering babies in an unsafe atmosphere without attendance of skilled birth attendants, dearth of blood, long hours of transport, lack of motorable roads, or absence of doctors, remains the top cause of death, of all causes that kill people. Up to 174 mothers die per lakh live births in India, according to the latest World Health Statistics report 2017, released by the World Health Organization (WHO). The Sustainable Development Goals set by the United Nations demand for India to reduce the maternal mortality to under 70 per lakh live births. It is a well-proven fact that incentivising deliveries has led to more mothers coming to hospitals. It is dreaded that implementing the one child norm will have terrible consequences for poor mothers who deliver more than one baby.

The author is a health correspondent with DNA