Maternity leave, compensation for pregnant Assam tea workers

GUWAHATI: Assam on Saturday became the first state to offer financial assistance under a special scheme for pregnant tea garden workers. They will also not be engaged in work from the third trimester of pregnancy to three months after delivery. Women form the bulk of the workforce in the state's 800-odd tea gardens.
Announcing the scheme, health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said, "This a path-breaking initiative to improve the mother and child health indicators in tea gardens." He added, "The noble objective of this scheme is to reduce maternal and neonatal mortality in tea gardens across the state." The tea-producing belt of upper Assam, comprising Dibrugarh, Jorhat, Sivasagar and Tinsukia, has one the country's worst maternal mortality rates (MMR). The Annual Health Survey of 2012-13 puts MMR at 404 in the tea gardens, whereas the state's average is 301. The national average during 2014-16 was 130.

Sarma said, "The scheme, which will be launched on Monday, is a wage compensation programme. It will ensure that women are not engaged in any kind of work during pregnancy and three months after delivery." He added, "Our main objective is to provide better health and nutritional supplements to pregnant women. For this, each one of them will get Rs 12,000 so that she can look after herself and her unborn baby without affecting the livelihood of her family."

The Rs 12,000 compensation will be paid in four instalments - Rs 2,000 (in the first trimester), Rs 4,000 (in the second trimester), Rs 3,000 (for institutional delivery) and Rs 3,000 (for registration of the child's birth). In addition, pregnant workers will get assistance for ante-natal care and the first cycle of immunization of the child.