Maharashtra to come down hard on that third child

Among other things, the orders will cover housing and motor vehicle loan schemes for government employees, allotment of leasehold lands, loans for share capital in cooperative societies and candidature for elections of local bodies and cooperative societies. The cut-off date for eligibility of government subsidies and concessions is May 1, 2001. This means families will not be eligible if third child is born after May 1, 2001.

The Food and Civil Supplies Department has already announced that the third child would not be eligible for the benefit of the public distribution system which offers kerosene and foodgrains at subsidised rates. According to the proposal, the name of the third child may appear in the ration card but the family will not be given more units for the PDS facility.

The initiative was taken by Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh who is keen on implementing the new population policy cleared by the state Cabinet on March 8, 2000.

The decision to this effect was taken by the state cabinet on May 8, 2000 but work on it started only on May 11 when Chief Secretary A L Bongirwar convened a meeting of the secretaries of various departments and directed them to submit proposals for implementing the cabinet decision. "So far, the Social Welfare, Co-operation, Finance and Animal Husbandary departments have issued orders to this effect while the Food and Civil Supplies, Revenue and Agriculture departments are in the process of coming out with the orders," said S K Shrivastava, Commissioner and Secretary, Family Welfare.

The orders issued by the departments simply state that the persons bearing two children would not be liable for any subsidy or concessions being given by the governement if their third child is born after May 1, 2001.

Similar decisions of School Education and Rural Development departments have been delayed to certain problems being faced by them in the implementation. "We will have to find some type of alternative planning for the school education since applying the same rule to this department would end up in denying basic education facilties to children in poor families. Some options like excluding the primary education from the order is under consideration," Shrivastava said.

In case of the Rural Development Department, the Centre’s nod is awaited since some of its schemes are funded by the Central Government.

The concerned department themselves will implement the government ‘s decision while Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh will himself conduct periodical review. The first review meeting will be held on September 21.

The controversy may have already begun its rumblings with Naseem Khan, Minister of State for Food and Civil Supplies, strongly objecting to the two child norm for ration cards.