Mumbai: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) plans to provide six months of paid maternity leave to around 5,000 women working as Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) or Community Health Volunteers (CHVs), a benefit they currently do not receive.
Additional municipal commissioner Prajakta Verma Lavangare said the proposal is being considered not only as a benefit but also as a way of retaining trained women workers and ensuring continuity in the civic health system. BMC would be the first civic body in Maharashtra to approve of the long-standing demand of ASHAs, trained female community health volunteers. The administration is also looking at the broader working conditions of its contractual and community-based health workforce, including remuneration, recruitment, induction and capacity building. ASHAs and CHVs form an important link between BMC’s health facilities and communities, particularly in areas where access to formal healthcare can be difficult. BMC’s health-post network uses CHVs and ASHAs for community-level outreach, with their work including health awareness, immunisation-related activities, maternal and child health follow-up and connecting residents with health services. Their local presence allows them to understand the needs of residents and act as a link between doctors and nurses at health posts and the communities they serve.
CHVs have historically been part-time women health workers recruited from local communities.