Chennai :Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay will launch the Thaaimaman Thanga Mothiram Thittam, a welfare scheme, on Monday, under which the government will provide a one-gram gold ring to babies born in state-run hospitals.
Sources here on Sunday said the CM will arrive in Madurai to launch the scheme at the Government Rajaji Hospital.
Arriving by a special flight, Vijay will inaugurate the scheme at the GRH auditorium and present gold rings to 25 newborns.
He is also scheduled to visit the maternity ward to personally present rings to infants born on the day.
To be eligible for the one-gram gold ring scheme, mothers of newborns must be permanent residents of Tamil Nadu.
The scheme was originally scheduled to be launched on September 15, the birth anniversary of late Chief Minister C N Annadurai, but was postponed due to Vijay’s overseas trip to London.
Under the (maternal uncle gold ring) scheme, each eligible newborn delivered at a government hospital will receive a one-gram, 22-carat gold ring.
The state government has allocated an annual outlay of Rs 755.83 crore for the scheme. In the first phase, 1.28 lakh gold rings have been made ready.
The gold rings will carry unique serial numbers and be distributed in tamper-proof packaging, the government said in a press release.
The scheme will be implemented across the state, except in areas falling under the Maduranthakam and Dharapuram Assembly constituencies, where bypolls are scheduled to be held on October 6.
Eligible beneficiaries should be registered under the Pregnancy and Infant Cohort Monitoring and Evaluation (PICME) system and have a Reproductive and Child Health (RCH) ID.
The gold rings will be provided when the beneficiaries are discharged from the hospitals.
Government sources said the scheme would not only increase public trust in government healthcare services but also promote safe delivery practices in hospitals.
According to the government, around 7.80 lakh children are born in Tamil Nadu every year and, as per the National Family Health Survey-6 (NFHS-6), 99.9 per cent of these deliveries take place in healthcare institutions.
Of these, around 4.20 lakh deliveries, or 53 per cent, take place in government hospitals, with 90 per cent of government institutional deliveries occurring at Comprehensive Emergency Obstetric and Neonatal Care (CEmONC) centres.
A specialised monitoring committee headed by the respective district Collector has been constituted in every district to oversee local implementation, inventory tracking and transparency in distribution.
Work orders have been issued to Joyalukkas and Kalyan Jewellers for the supply of one-gram gold rings under the Thaaimaman Thanga Mothiram Thittam, a key pre-poll promise of the ruling TVK.