Budget 2018: Govt may sidestep demand for boost to maternity benefit scheme

Budget 2018-2019 : Demands from activists and economists for a raise in the budget allocation for the government's maternity benefit programme have failed to cut ice with the Centre.

The Ministry of Women and Child Development has not sought any increase for the Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana (PMMVY), which promises Rs 6,000 to pregnant and lactating mothers for the birth of their first child, in its wishlist to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley for Union Budget 2018, an official said.

The ministry has asked for Rs 25 billion for the programme, the same as last year.

An initial amount of Rs 27 billion was announced for the scheme during Union Budget 2017 but it was later revised to Rs 25 billion.

About 60 top economists of the country wrote to Jaitley in December last year, pointing out that the amount of Rs 27 billion set aside by the Centre was a third of what is required under National Food Security Act (NFSA), 2013, which entitles all pregnant women and lactating mothers to at least Rs 6,000, and not just mothers of first-borns.

It is reliably learnt that NITI Aayog had opposed the move to restrict benefits to only mothers of first-borns but the Prime Minister's Office stuck to its guns because of the cost factor.

The rollout of the scheme in its first year of implementation has been tardy with only 96,460 women receiving cash transfers until January 15, 2018. This is less than 2 per cent of the total 51.6 lakh women the government seeks to benefit annually.

As a result, in the next fiscal, the government will have to provide cash benefits to double the number of women, while last years budget would have lapsed.

This shows that the government is not serious, said Dipa Sinha, convenor of the Right to Food campaign, who was among those who wrote to Jaitley.

"By the government's own truncated estimate, 52 lakh women were to benefit from the scheme in the current financial year. But since only a fraction of them have received the cash transfer, it means the government needs to now reach out to double the annual estimate in the next financial year and, therefore, should have at least sought twice the funds allocated last year," Sinha explained.

She added that the scheme is violative of the NFSA, under which all pregnant and lactating mothers, except government employees, are entitled to a sum of at least Rs 6,000.

The PMMVY programme is, however, restricted to only one child per woman. The scheme also excludes any woman who already has a child today because it applies only to the birth of the first living child.