KRISHNAGIRI: A man in his fifties, visibly tired, with sweat dripping from his eyebrows! For a second, this image of his father flashed through the mind of Kelamangalam Block Medical Officer (BMO) C Rajesh Kumar while he, along with his team, was conducting a Covid-19 vaccination camp at Kottayurkollai tribal village in Bettamugilalam Panchayat.
Thanks to the camp held in August 2021, Rajesh found out many, both children and adults, don’t have documents including Aadhaar cards and birth certificates to prove their identity.
From here, start a ‘reality check’.The team comprising health inspectors, village health nurses (VHN) and Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) workers started a mission, visiting government schools and Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) centres in the panchayat and found out that around 500 students don’t have the documents. Out of the 500, Rajesh says, as a first step they applied for birth certificates for 225 students, among whom 170 were born at home.
“Most of them belong to the Irula community. Getting certificates is not at all easy if the births are not entered in the revenue records. Our team had to visit the sub-registrar’s office, taluk office, RDO office and schools many times in the last year before getting the first batch of 78 certificates. We had to spend Rs 21,000 in total to get these documents. All the 78 cases were already registered as institutional deliveries and their records are available at the sub-registrar office at Denkanikottai. The certificates of another 125 children born at home will be issued from Hosur RDO and Denkanikottai taluk offices soon,” he points out, adding he has MLA of Thalli constituency, T Ramachandran, who contributed Rs 2.15 lakh for getting certificates of 200 children and Bettamugilalam Panchayat VAO Raman, who helped in getting details of the students, to thank for.
Rajesh’s team is ecstatic now as Hosur RDO V Thenmozhi, and other senior revenue department officials visited Kottayurkollai village for two days recently as part of the verification process of 80 birth certificate applications.
Taking steps to arrange birth certificates is just part of the activities of the health department officials. In a bid to encourage institutional delivery, they started a community baby shower ceremony at Bettamugilam in April 2019.
Though the villagers, especially expectant mothers, did not show much interest in the event during the initial stages, it became a huge success later, with pregnant women thronging the venue wearing a smile on their faces. They also started visiting nearby Primary Health Centres (PHC) or government hospitals once they got acquainted with the village health nurses and ASHA workers.
“During the event, each expectant mother is given a set of two dozen bangles, a plate, a blouse piece, and other items. In addition to this, food is also served by the health department staff. Each VHN prepares different varieties of food, and a few sponsors make contributions to buy plates, blouse pieces, flowers, coconuts, and bananas,” the BMO says.
From April 2019 until now, as many as 977 expectant mothers have attended the events in the panchayats of Bettamugilalam, Bevanatham, Irudhukottai, Thimjepalli and Doddametrai.
The 23-year-old S Kayalvizhi from Bettamugilalam village, who is pregnant with her second child, was all smiles when she attended the baby shower ceremony at Irudhukottai. “Usually, we attend the baby shower ceremony only during the first pregnancy. But here, I am attending it for the second time,” she says.
Rajesh’s flash thought is not without a reason, for he knows how much his father had to suffer to get the birth certificate for him. The BMO got his birth certificate only in November 2016, that too, at the cost of Rs 5,000, a year’s wait and his father’s strenuous visits to various government offices.