Awaiting Indemnity

Women fall victim to failed sterilisation, while the government remains unaware of this missing link in population surge

- Kundan Pandey

IT'S TOO little, too late, thought Jivali Bai and her husband Ram Chandra Meena from Rajasthan’s Gyaspur village when they received ₹30,000 in July this year as compensation under the Family Planning Indemnity Scheme (fpis). “I had undergone sterilisation in 2003, after a doctor from the district health centre at Pratapgarh said it is a permanent method of contraception. By then we had two children and caring for them was becoming difficult,” recalls Jivali, who works as a labourer along with her husband. The procedure, which involved tying or clipping fallopian tubes through a minimally invasive surgery to prevent eggs from reaching uterus for implantation, required her to stay in the hospital for two days, shell out ₹500 and forgo wages for over a week. But three years later, she learnt she was pregnant. “We were shaken by the news as raising a third child was beyond our capacity,” says Meena. Though the government assures ₹ 30,000 under fpis in case sterilisation fails, the couple made peace with their fate as they did not know who to turn to. The third child, Meera, was born at the hospital where Bai had undergone sterilisation.

She received the compensation 11 years later after non-profit Prayas persuaded her to move the Rajasthan High Court. “Some 47 women from Rajasthan and 23 from Madhya Pradesh have moved court in the past two years after we informed them that they are eligible for compensation under fpis. Twenty-four of them have been compensated for undergoing mental agony and financial loss due to unwanted pregnancy,” says Chhaya Pachauli of Prayas that works on public healthcare.