The Ministry of Women and Child Development has extended the special registration drive for the Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana (PMMVY) till August 15.
The PMMVY provides financial assistance to support nutritious diets and improve health seeking behaviour amongst the Pregnant Women & Lactating Mothers (PW&LM), along with promoting positive attitudes toward the girl child. Ever since it was launched, more than 4.05 crore beneficiaries have been paid the maternity benefit (at least one instalment) amounting to Rs 19,028 crore, through direct benefit transfer in their bank/post office accounts.
The PMMVY offers cash incentives as partial compensation for wage loss to enable mothers to rest before and after delivery of the first child.
The Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana is a centrally sponsored scheme under Mission Shakti’s sub-scheme ‘Samarthya’, providing direct financial assistance through the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) mode. Under PMMVY, a cash incentive of Rs 5,000 is provided in two instalments for the first child, and Rs 6,000 is provided in one instalment post-birth for the second girl child, in accordance with Mission Shakti Scheme Guidelines, the statement read.
The scheme aims to improve health-seeking behaviour among Pregnant Women and Lactating Mothers and ensure better maternal and child health outcomes across the country.
The implementation of the Scheme is done by officials of States and UTs through their field functionaries using the new Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana Software (PMMVY Soft) that was launched in March, 2023.
Under PMMVYSoft, Aadhaar authentication through UIDAI is done digitally and National Payment Corporations of India (NPCI) verification is ensured so that funds are directly transferred to their DBT-enabled Aadhaar-seeded bank or post office accounts.
A number of reforms have been introduced in the PMMVY portal, to ensure smoother delivery and greater coverage of the scheme, such as introduction of Integrated Grievance Module, Multilingual and Toll-free PMMVY Helpline (14408), Aadhar-based biometric authentication using Facial Recognition System (FRS) and Due-list of potential PMMVY beneficiaries, the statement read further.