PUNE: A reservation of sorts has made its inroads in family planning too. Now, only women from the scheduled castes (SCs), scheduled tribes (STs) and those from the below-poverty-line (BPL) category would be eligible for the state government's cash incentives given for undergoing tubectomy. Earlier, all women going in for a tubectomy would get Rs 150 as incentive. Now, a recent notification from the state's Public Health Department says that only SC/ST women would get the incentive, which has been hiked to Rs 600. Dr Anjali Sabne, in-charge of the PMC's city family welfare bureau, said the government has revised the incentive structure for promoting vasectomy and tubectomy. However, no such reservation has been specified for the incentives given to men undergoing vasectomy. The revised norms specify that people undergoing vasectomy and tubectomy operations would be entitled for different amounts, Sabne said. Accordingly, a man going in for a vasectomy at a municipal corporation or state-run hospital would get Rs 1,100. If he gets it done at a private hospital, that hospital would get Rs 1,300 as incentive for extending all surgical and treatment facilities to the individual free of cost, Sabne said. Dr Avinash Bhondwe, president of the city chapter of the Indian Medical Association, said, "Instead of calling it caste-based incentives, I would call it a need-based incentives. As the per capita income of women from the SC/ST and BPL categories is meagre, they need real help than others."
21 May 2008, 0509 hrs IST , Umesh Isalkar , TNN
THE TIMES OF INDIA
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