Health and food rights groups on Monday accused the Narendra Modi government of reneging on a 2013 act that pledged monetary benefits to support the dietary needs of pregnant women, urging the Centre to course-correct in the upcoming budget.

The Right to Food Campaign, in a media statement, said the Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana (PMMVY) has never covered more than 50 per cent of the expectant mothers in the country since the programme’s inception in 2017.

The National Food Security Act, 2013, had provisions for maternity benefits, including an amount of “not less than Rs 6,000” to support the diet of pregnant women and lactating mothers. However, the Yojana, in contravention of the act, provides only Rs 5,000 to them.

“The PMMVY now provides Rs 6,000 to a pregnant woman only if the second child is a girl,” said Raj Shekhar, a member of the Right to Food Campaign. “And eligible women face barriers in the form of conditionalities and forms that need to be filled up.”

Last year, the government extended the scheme to include a second child, only if it is a girl. “There is no justification for not including all children and pregnant women under the PMMVY,” a campaigner said, adding that restricting maternity benefits only to the first child is tantamount to discrimination against the second or third child.

The campaign has also decried what it has described as poor budget allocations to the scheme.

“The number of women who received PMMVY benefits crashed from 9.6 million in 2019-20 to 7.5 million in 2020-21 and 6.1 million in 2021-22 — a decline of nearly 40 per cent over two years,” it stated.

The campaign attributed the scheme’s poor coverage to insufficient budget allocations. The Centre allocated Rs 2,048 crore to the PMMVY in 2022-23, about 5 per cent lower than the allocation of Rs 2,150 crore in 2021-22. The 2023-24 budget did not mention separate allocations for the PMMVY.

“It is seen that the number of instalments, paperwork requirement and extensive form-filling are unnecessary hurdles for women, and they cannot avail themselves of the scheme’s benefits despite being eligible,” it said.

The burdensome formalities and conditionalities for being eligible have contributed to the decline in the count of the PMMVY recipients, its statement said. "As we approach the final Budget to be presented by this government, we demand that the Central government, at least now, acknowledges its responsibility towards ensuring the implementation of maternity entitlements for all women and pregnant persons...," it said.