Abrupt closure of portal has made data inaccessible to health workers, few new people have been registered across state since March
The primary objective of PMMVY is to provide compensation for wage loss during pregnancy. Representation Pic
- Very few new beneficiaries have been registered in Mumbai since March this year
- A health official explained that the old website abruptly shut down
- The scheme was initially launched in 2017 with a provision for direct cash transfer
Thousands of pregnant women and new mothers across Maharashtra have not received their Rs 5,000 entitlements under the Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana (PMMVY) for the past few months due to changes in the scheme’s guidelines and the website. Very few new beneficiaries have been registered in the city and the state since March this year after the Central government decided to shut down the old portal for the scheme.
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A state-level health official involved in the implementation of the programme explained that the old website abruptly shut down in mid-March. “All the beneficiary data was on the old website, and it has become inaccessible since. As a result, there is no way to determine how many people have not received their money,” the official stated.
The data migration to the new website, which remained inaccessible to health workers for registering new beneficiaries until about September, is still in progress. “There is still very little clarity on when those registered under the old guidelines will now receive their pending benefits,” the official expressed.
Last year, Maharashtra had managed to register about four lakh women under the scheme, of which about 3.5 lakh women had received the benefits after having a Direct Benefit Transfer-enabled bank account. “Only about 90,000 women have been registered so far this year under the new scheme,” the officials said, adding that many forms in the earlier scheme were rejected due to issues with their or their husband’s Aadhaar.
The scheme was initially launched in 2017 with a provision for direct cash transfer to the bank or post office account of pregnant women and lactating mothers for their first living child. The primary objective of PMMVY is to provide compensation for wage loss during pregnancy so that women can maintain adequate food intake and rest before and after the delivery of the child.
In 2022, this scheme was revised, and additional documents, such as income proof (often the family's ration card), were added to the list. It is now known as ‘PMMVY 2.0’. The new scheme does not require the husband’s Aadhaar anymore, and it extends an additional entitlement of Rs 6,000 to women whose second child is female.
“So, in September, we were told by the Centre to start registering women with a second child born in and after April 2022, and ASHAs and health workers were put to the task. Most of the 90,000 registered this year are women with a second child and not the first,” the state official explained.
With the new revised scheme came a new website, but state officials were not informed in advance before the old website was shut down. Many initially thought it was a technical glitch when the old website stopped working. Around June, the Central government issued a government resolution implementing the scheme with its new guidelines, while in earlier announcements, the government had stated that the scheme would be implemented from April 2022.
The state government followed suit, and officials received their login credentials, along with health workers from local municipal corporations, by June-July. However, there were some technical errors, and the credentials were soon revoked.
“We were able to access the website with our login credentials only by September,” said a ward-level health official with the BMC. “The details were incomplete, and they had asked for revised data of health officials and workers,” said another official with the state public health department.
Even now, the process of registering new beneficiaries is slow, as community health workers and ASHAs have just started receiving training. However, even at BMC health posts, health workers have encountered cases where glitches on the website continue. “Some do not have their names on family’s ration cards, and others do not have Aadhaar linked to a DBT-linked bank account,” said a health worker at a health post in M East ward.
Meanwhile, a civic medical health officer in Central Mumbai is disappointed with how the revised scheme has panned out on the ground. “Since May, we have been asking health workers to note down the contact details of the beneficiaries to register them once all these issues are sorted out. But there will be a drop-out rate as some of these women will be difficult to track again,” he remarked.
On October 27, a national event on the PMMVY was held by Minister of Women and Child Development Smriti Irani and Chief Minister Eknath Shinde at the Yashwantrao Chavan Centre in Mumbai. This event highlighted the achievements of PMMVY the features of the new PMMVY portal and mobile app with slogans like Digital India, Make in India and Atmanirbhar Bharat.
2022
Year scheme was revised
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