A centrally sponsored maternity benefit scheme that pays cash directly into the bank accounts of pregnant women and lactating mothers, Rs 5,000 for the first child and Rs 6,000 for a second child if it is a girl, to make up partly for lost wages and to encourage health-seeking behaviour.
Poor women in India often keep working in fields, construction sites or homes until late in pregnancy and return soon after childbirth, because they cannot afford to lose income. This harms their own health and the baby's, raising risks of low birth weight, anaemia and poor breastfeeding. Formal-sector employees get paid maternity leave under the Maternity Benefit Act, now 26 weeks, but the vast majority of women work in the informal economy and have no such protection.
The National Food Security Act, 2013, gave every pregnant woman and lactating mother a legal entitlement to maternity benefit of at least Rs 6,000. A pilot, the Indira Gandhi Matritva Sahyog Yojana, ran in selected districts from 2010. In 2017 the programme was expanded nationwide and renamed Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana. Under "Mission Shakti" guidelines from 2022 it was redesigned to add support for a second girl child. This page looks at the scheme as a conditional cash transfer and labour market instrument, rather than as a nutrition programme.
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