Cong accuses NDA govt of doing politics of false promises

Congress today accused the BJP-led NDA government of doing politics of "false promises" and condemned it for appropriation of credit of the previous UPA government by announcing a universal maternity entitlement of Rs 6,000 to every pregnant mother.
"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 Rs 6000 to every pregnant and lactating woman is one more such instance," Chairman of Congress SC department K Raju said.
In a statement, he also condemned the NDA government for not allocating adequate resources under the scheme and demanded that the same be made immediately.

Raju said as per Women and Child Development Ministry, the central government's total contribution for next three financial years is only Rs 7,348 crore, or Rs 2,449 crore per year.
With a 60:40 ratio for centre/state contributions, this means a total of barely Rs 4,000 crore per year and this, he said, is a fraction of what is actually required even assuming that only the first two births are covered by maternity entitlements.

"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.

The Congress leader said Universal maternity entitlements were mandated as per the National Food Security Act 2013 passed by the outgoing UPA Government.
He said the incumbent NDA Government neither framed any new scheme to operationalise maternity entitlements nor did it expand the existing Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yojana running as a pilot in 53 districts.
Consequently millions of women in the unorganised sector were being denied their legal right to maternity benefits under the NDA Government, he said.
"The PM's announcement thus was not the introduction of a new welfare program but the belated acknowledgement of an existing entitlement.

"It is thus all the more unfortunate that even now the NDA Government has provided a mere Rs 4000 crore annually for this scheme as against the required Rs 14000 crores annually," he said.
Raju said with India's birth rate at 20 per 1,000, the expected number of births per year is around 26 million (population: 130 crore) and even with 10 pc of births covered by the formal sector, universal maternity entitlements of Rs 6000 per birth will cost Rs 14,000 crore per year.