Criticising the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) Government’s Universal Maternity Assistance programme, the Congress on Saturday said the scheme does not benefit all women and leaves out those in the unorganised sector. The Congress also accused the Central Government of allocating insufficient amount for the scheme.
“The Congress party strongly condemns the BJP Government’s politics of false promises and appropriation of credit for previous Government’s work. The Prime Minister’s announcement on December 31, 2016 to provide universal maternity entitlement of Rs6,000 to every pregnant and lactating woman is one more such instance,” said K Raju, chairman of SC wing of Congress.
Raju claimed that the Universal maternity entitlements were mandated as per the National Food Security Act 2013 passed by the outgoing UPA Government. However, the incoming NDA Government neither framed any new scheme to operationalise maternity entitlements nor did it expand the existing Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yojana that was running as a pilot project in 53 districts of the country.
“Millions of women in the unorganised sector were being denied their legal right to maternity benefits under the NDA Government. The PM's announcement thus was not the introduction of a new welfare program but the belated acknowledgement of an existing entitlement,” Raju said.
The Congress claimed that the NDA Government has provided only Rs4000 crore annually for this scheme against the required Rs14,000 crore. “With India’s birth rate at 20 per 1,000, the expected number of births per year is around 26 million (population: 130 crore).
Even with 10 per cent of births covered by the formal sector, universal maternity entitlements of Rs6000 per birth will cost Rs14,000 crore per year...The Congress party strongly condemns the NDA Government’s dishonesty to the millions of poor women across the country and urges it to immediately allocate adequate budgetary support to ensure implementation of universal maternity entitlements,” he said.