Orissa nurtures potential mother of all schemes…..Debabrata Mohanty
Cash for pregnant women with account-to-account transfers, state government says model will be corruption – proof and can be replicated elsewhere
Orissa is looking at a pioneering scheme for maternal assistance not only as a means to control infant and maternal mortality but also as a model for replication in schemes hit by corruption.
From October 20, the government will start paying conditional cash incentives, transferring the money from account to account, to about a lakh rural women during and after pregnancy. If all goes well, government sources said, its the account-to-account model that they are hoping to replicate elsewhere. For example, they said, in the Indira Awas Yojana and the NREGS where cash is transferred through post offices, the money has often not reached the intended beneficiaries among the poor.
The money under the new scheme will be to ensure the women get the needed nutrition before and after delivery, and also serve as compensation for those who work for wages. The Rs-380-crore scheme, named Mamata and launched last month by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, is targeted at all pregnant women in rural areas. Among them, the scheme makes no distinction between those who live above and below the poverty line.
The launch of the scheme has been timed keeping an eye on the panchayat polls in January-February 2012. To be implemented by Child Development Project Officers (CDPOs) in the Women and Child Development Department, it involves Rs 5,000 to be deposited in instalments Rs 1,500 after six months of pregnancy, along with vaccination in an Anganwadi centre;
Rs 1,500 with vaccination of the child at age three months; then
Rs 1,000 each at ages six and nine months, with vaccination and childcare.
In a state with high mortality rates for both infants (65 per 1,000 births) and mothers (258 per 1 lakh births), the project will cover pregnant women as young as 19. Second in size only to the Rs 2-a-kg rice scheme, it is being pushed equally vigorously by the government.
The cash transfer model will involve Net-banking. Apart from ensuring the money reaches the right person, the scheme will also mean more financial inclusion, said Sujata R Karthikeyan, director of social welfare. In Orissa, where there are 7.5 lakh pregnancies a year, it would mean as many bank accounts for women, Karthikeyan said.
Apart from the Rs 5,000 cash incentive, the women would also get Rs 1,400 under the Centres Janani Suraksha Yojana after delivery.
The cash transfer model is based on the corporate banking model of the State Bank of India; the scheme makes it compulsory that each woman be given a no-frills account in any bank that has a core banking facility. To start with, it is the SBI that will open such accounts as its presence in rural areas is the largest. In the next couple of months, Gramya Banks in rural Orissa will be roped in for cash transfers after they get a core banking facility.
The moment a woman registers herself at a local Anganwadi centre, she gets not only the account but also a Mother Child Protection (MCP) card with records of her pregnancy and the medical follow-up. Even women who suffer a miscarriage will get compensation.
The model involves several stages in which the money is transferred from the CDPOs master account to each womans account. First, her details are entered into the Net-banking system by a data entry operator. In the second stage, the details are checked; in the third, one of the 318 CDPOs routes a payment to the individual account after he/she is satisfied that the beneficiary has completed the conditions. To ensure that every transfer has gone to the right account, the department plans to hire auditors who would make at least 50 field verifications every month.
Our Net-banking model with a two-step verification process (first while logging in and then through a password sent to mobile phones) would be impossible for anyone to manipulate. It is the same model with which companies with an SBI corporate salary account pay their employees, said B N Mishra, assistant general manager (government business), SBI.
Each Anganwadi centre will display a list of beneficiaries with account numbers, to rule out any chance of mischief by the CDPOs, oficials said.
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/orissa-nurtures-potential-mother-of-all-schemes/845611/0