Paper trailed

-The Indian Express

 

Aimed at reducing maternal and child mortality, the Janani Suraksha Yojana is a scheme unflinching in its ambition and creativeness. Launched more than five years ago, it supplements incentives like free transport with conditional cash transfer to encourage “institutional delivery”. In the years since, the data has been encouraging, but regional variations are evident — as are, unfortunately, indications that the poorest women may not necessarily be the biggest beneficiaries. Clearly, a lot of awareness and infrastructural work is needed to reach the scheme to all potential beneficiaries. Crucial to this is continuous monitoring.

The UP Congress Committee may not have been motivated purely by the academic potential of an inquiry into the working of the JSY when, encouraged by party General Secretary Rahul Gandhi, it decided to flood the state authorities with Right to Information inquiries about beneficiaries. The campaign for the 2012 UP elections is, for all practical purposes, in full swing, and the Congress is interrogating the Mayawati government on numerous counts. But the data collected can offer valuable trends, especially at a time when the Union health ministry has announced an initiative to strengthen the scheme, and after studies have indicated lower than average coverage in UP.

That is, if the Congress can work out the mechanics of sifting through this data. UP Congress chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi’s RTI inquiry about 500 gram panchayats and 110 municipal blocks of Lucknow district, for instance, has yielded 28,229 pages in reply. Pleading that Youth Congress workers may be better armed to verify the information as PCC workers are engaged in other “grass-root level” activities, Joshi has dispatched the files to Gandhi. We now await word on the party’s next move.