Every baby girl born in all 24 Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike maternity hospitals in the next financial year, starting from April 1, will be gifted with 15-year maturity bonds of Rs 1 lakh to assist them financially for their education or marriage. The BBMP made this announcement as part of the list of welfare programs for women as part of its 2019-20 budget with an outlay of more than Rs 10,000 crores. A sum of Rs 60 crore has been set aside for this purpose under ‘Mahalakshmi Yojane’ scheme.
This scheme is a spin-off of last year’s pink baby scheme, which awarded Rs 5 lakh to the first girl born in every 24 of BBMP-run maternity hospitals. To promote self-employment of women, the BBMP has also allotted Rs 5 crore to provide four vehicles for each of the 28 assembly constituencies in the city to run mobile canteens. In addition to this, they will also provide a 50% subsidy on the running cost for mobile canteens units.
The BBMP has also proposed to spend Rs 3 crore to launch two fully-equipped mobile testing buses to detect cancer at the initial stage for women living within the Palike’s limits.
Rs 19.80 crore has been set aside for women-centric welfare programmes, with Rs 10 lakh for each of the 198 wards. The same was allotted as part of last year’s budget.
The budget was presented by SP Hemalatha, the JD(S) corporator from Vrisahbhavathi Nagar and the chairperson of the Standing Committee on Taxation and Finance of the BBMP, as per convention.
With both the Mayor and chairperson of the Standing Committee on Taxation and Finance of BBMP being women, it was expected that the Budget would have certain welfare initiatives. As compared to last year, there have been a few additions to the allocation of funds for the welfare of women.
In 2018, other than the Rs 10 lakh allocation to every ward for women’s welfare, Rs 25 lakh was earmarked for dietary supplements for poor pregnant women. Rs 1.5 crore was allocated for providing health kits to postnatal mothers at BBMP hospitals.