Parliament Question: PMMVY in Tribal Areas

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF WOMEN AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT LOK SABHA UN-STARRED QUESTION No. 2290 ANSWERED ON 31.07.2026 PMMVY IN TRIBAL AREAS 2290. SHRI BUNTY VIVEK SAHU: SHRI UTKARSH VERMA MADHUR: Will the Minister of Women and Child Development be pleased to state: (a) the number of eligible beneficiaries to whom payments of maternity benefit have been successfully made in the rural and remote tribal areas of Chhindwara district in Madhya Pradesh such as Tamia and Patalkot and Lakhimpur Kheri Parliamentary Constituency in Uttar Pradesh under the Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana (PMMVY) during the year 2025-26 and the current financial year; (b) whether the Government is aware that applications of several eligible beneficiaries are rejected/unable to receive amount due to the problems related to mobile network/Aadhaar linking/inactive bank accounts/technical errors/verification in the said regions; (c) if so, the details of the remedial steps being taken by the Government to address these anomalies; and (d) whether the Government proposes to launch a 'special drive' to address these discrepancies through local Anganwadi Centres to ensure 100 per cent coverage under the said scheme in tribal dominated districts in the said regions and further simplify the process by the utilizing, unutilized funds, if so, the details thereof? ANSWER MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF WOMEN AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT (SHRIMATI SAVITRI THAKUR)(a) to (d) The number of beneficiaries paid maternity benefits under PMMVY in the rural and remote tribal areas of Chhindwara District (encompassing Tamia and Patalkot) and Lakhimpur Kheri District in Uttar Pradesh are as under: Financial Year Chhindwara District Lakhimpur Kheri District 2025-26 21,969 17,286 2026-27 (till 29.07.2026) 4,328 3,390 A number of steps and initiatives have been undertaken by the Government of India to resolve problems related to Aadhaar linking/ inactive bank accounts/ technical errors/ verification etc. and to ensure timely Aadhar-based Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) payments, seamless processing of applications, effective implementation of the Scheme and to promote women’s health empowerment by increasing awareness, registration and saturation of coverage among eligible women, including in rural and remote tribal areas. Some of these are as under: i. New portal for PMMVY, which is completely paperless was launched in March 2023. As per earlier Guideline, physical forms were required to be filled and uploaded in the earlier PMMVY-CAS portal for onward process. In new system, physical application forms have been eliminated and complete online solution has been given. ii. Payments are through Adhaar Bridge Payment System [ABPS] as PMMVY portal is enabled for Aadhar-based biometric verification (by means of facial recognition) to confirm identity details of the applicants. iii. All the mandatory provisions like Aadhaar verification, DBT enablement of bank account etc. are checked at the time of registration for faster processing. iv. Search and Track Status for all enrolled beneficiaries to check the approval and payment status of their applications. v. Grievance Lodging and status module for all citizens to lodge any PMMVY related grievance. The Module directly sends the grievance to the implementing authorities thus saving time and leads to swifter resolution. vi. PMMVY toll-free and multi lingual (17 - languages) helpline (1515) is available for PMMVY related enquiries and grievances. For transparency purposes, the Applicants/ beneficiaries receive SMS in one of the 12 major languages at different stages such as registration of application, rejection of registration, payment etc. vii. PMMVY Portal is LGD compliant till AWC level. LGD Seeding is introduced up to State/District/Block/ Village/GP/Ward level. viii. Open API allows the freedom to share data with other Central and State Ministry/Department.ix. MIS Data can be generated at State/ District/ Block/ Village/ Ward/ Project/ Sector/ Anganwadi level for detailed monitoring/ analysis. x. PMMVY will be used by Anganwadi/ ASHA workers for data centric operations and viewing reports. xi. Available database of the PW&LM from Poshan Tracker is used to create a “Due List” of potential beneficiaries on PMMVY Portal accessible at AWW/ASHA level. Additionally, the Ministry of Women & Child Development conducts various awareness programs including those on Maternity Benefits through SANKALP-Hub for Empowerment of Women (HEW) scheme for all States and UTs. It includes various Information, Education and Communication (IEC) and Behavior Change Communication (BCC) activities such as Prabhat Pheri, Nukkad Natak, Newspaper Advertisements, Airing Radio Jingles, Selfie Campaign, Door to Door Campaign, Community Programmes which are conducted at field functionary levels. Further, the Ministry also runs special campaign for registration of eligible beneficiaries in all the States and UTs under PMMVY on a periodic basis. From time to time, the Government organises various ‘Special Drives’/ ‘Enrolment Drives’ under PMMVY to address various discrepancies through local Anganwadi Centres, and to ensure optimum coverage under PMMVY across the country, including in tribal dominated districts. Recently, the Ministry organised a ‘Special Drive’ from 15th June 2026 to 15th July 2026, during which the number of beneficiaries enrolled under the scheme are as under: Beneficiaries Enrolled during the Special Drive from 15.06.2026 to 15.07.2026 All India 8,83,877 Uttar Pradesh 1,77,966 Madhya Pradesh 97,811 *****