Right to Food and Work Campaign, West Bengal

KOLKATA, 20th November, 2017: Today a team of 10 members from different organizations had submitted a deputation to Anil Verma, the Health Secretary of West Bengal, regarding the demands of Maternity Benefits under section 4(B) of the National Food Security Act. 2013.  Dr. Aurobindo Ghosh, AMD, National Health Mission was also present. The Health Secretary said that he would try to start giving beneficiaries  maternity benefits from 1st January, 2018. The team demanded that no conditions such as number of children, age of mother should be imposed in choice of beneficiary. At first the health secretary denied to provide the facilities to the pregnant and lactating woman under 19, but when members in the deputation team drew his attention to the fact that nutrition is essential for every individual child and mother, he agreed to talk the Central Government on this matter. The team has also submitted a deputation regarding the delayed and irregular payments to the ‘Dhai’s and...

1.                   Date From Which the Scheme Will Have Effect The Rules should be changed so that the Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojona (PMMVY) has retrospective effect from 2013. As per Section 1(3) of National Food Security Act, 2013, this Act should have effect from 5 th July, 2013. Therefore, Section 4(b) of the Act i.e. maternity benefit should also be effected from 5 th July, 2013. But Rule 1 (2) of the Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojona Rules, 2017, which is for the purpose of implementation of Section 4(b) of the Act, 2013, states that “they shall come into force on the date of their publication in the Official Gazette” and the said publication is yet to happen. Now if benefit is effected from the date of publication of the draft rules, 2017 in the Official Gazette then the beneficiaries between the date of 5 th July, 2013 and the date when the draft rule will be published in th...