Maharashtra pays woman Rs 1 lakh for no med aid during lockdown

MUMBAI: In the first case of its kind, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has directed the state public health department to pay Rs 1 lakh to a mother and child as interim relief for failing to provide timely medical care during the delivery and causing great mental stress to the woman, reports Prafulla Marpakwar.
The NHRC took cognisance of an alert by an NGO in 2020 following reports that the woman, forced to walk home to Madhya Pradesh with her migrant labourer husband who was then working in Maharashtra during the countrywide Covid lockdown, gave birth to a baby on the way near Pimpalgaon on May 26, 2020. She could not avail of any medical facilities and after resting for a few hours, resumed the walk of 150km home.
Acting on the NHRC directives, the public health department on December 26 approved payment of Rs 50,000 for the mother, Shankutala Kaul, and another Rs 50,000 for her newborn child.