Janani Suraksha Yojana: All About The Maternity Scheme For Women; From Benefits, Eligibility To Rules

The National Health Mission introduced JananiSurakshaYojana (JSY) to offer safe motherhood intervention for poor pregnant women. The scheme offers benefits during pre-and-post delivery. The main objective of the scheme is to reduce maternal and neonatal mortality by promoting institutional delivery among poor pregnant women.

The scheme is focused on all states and Union Territories (UTs), with a special focus on Low Performing States (LPS). On its website, the National Health Mission (NHM) said, JSY is a centrally sponsored scheme, which integrates cash assistance with delivery and post-delivery care. The Yojana has identified Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA) as an effective link between the government and pregnant women.

Features:

The scheme focuses on poor pregnant women with a special dispensation for states that have low institutional delivery rates, namely, the states of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Assam, Rajasthan, Orissa, and Jammu and Kashmir.

While these states have been named Low Performing States (LPS), the remaining states have been named High Performing States (HPS).

Who Is Eligible?

Under the scheme, three categories are declared for pregnant women to avail of the benefits. They are:

- LPS: All pregnant women delivering in government health centres, such as Sub Centers (SCs)/Primary Health Centers (PHCs)/Community Health Centers (CHCs)/First Referral Units (FRUs)/general wards of the district or state hospitals

- HPS: All BPL/Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe (SC/ST) women delivering in a government health centre, such as SC/PHC/CHC/FRU/general wards of the district or state hospital

- LPS & HPS: BPL/SC/ST women in accredited private institutions

Cash Assistance:

The cash entitlement is categorised into two parts namely the Mothers package and ASHA's package, and they differ in both rural and urban areas.

Rural Areas:

Under LPS, the mother's package has a cash entitlement of Rs 1,400 and ASHA's package of Rs 600. Under HPS, the mothers' package includes a cash benefit of Rs 700 and the ASHA package includes a Rs 600 benefit.

Notably, the ASHA package of Rs. 600 in rural areas includes Rs. 300 for the ANC component and Rs. 300 for facilitating institutional delivery.

Overall, the cash entitlement is Rs 2,000 in LPS and Rs 1,300 in HPS.

Urban Areas:

Here, the cash entitlement is much lower to Rs 1,000 as the mother's package and Rs 400 as the ASHA package under LPS. In the HPS category, the mothers' package includes Rs 600 and the ASHA package is of Rs 400.

ASHA package of Rs. 400 in urban areas includes Rs. 200 for ANC components and Rs. 200 for facilitating institutional delivery.

In total, there is a cash entitlement of Rs 1,400 in LPS, and Rs 1,000 in HPS.

Also, the NHM has directed that as the cash assistance to the mother is mainly to meet the cost of delivery, it should be disbursed effectively at the institution itself.

However, for a pregnant woman going to a public health institution for delivery, the entire cash entitlement should be disbursed to her in one go, at the health institution. Considering that some women would access accrediting private institutions for antenatal care, they would require some financial support to get at least 3 ANCs including the TT injections. In such cases, at least three-fourth (3/4) of the cash assistance under JSY should be paid to the beneficiary in one go, importantly, at the time of delivery.

The mother and the ASHA (wherever applicable) should get their entitled money at the health centre immediately on arrival and registration for delivery. Additionally, the ANM/ ASHA should carry out the entire disbursement process. However, till ASHA joins, AWW or any identified link worker, under the guidance of the ANM may also do the disbursement.