Bhubaneswar, July 14: Expecting mother Subhadra Bag, 24, from Patalpur village in Balangir has an additional task on her hands, apart from her household chores.

The mom-to-be is making rounds of a bank to open an account in her name as it has become mandatory to take advantage of the state government’s Mamata scheme under which pregnant women are paid Rs 5,000 in instalments.

“The bank officials are not cooperative and ask us to come time and again. This is not possible as communication is a problem in these areas. However, Rs 5,000 is a huge amount for us to let go. Also, there is a pressure from the family to get it done,” said five-month pregnant Subhadra.

Officials in the women and child development department have found it hard to convince the banks that remain too rigid on following the Know Your Customer guidelines of the Reserve Bank of India that asks for sufficient identification proofs while opening accounts.

The beneficiaries, being young and new to the villages where they are married off, find themselves struggling to provide an identity proof. The banks put their foot down, making the account-opening job all the more difficult.

“Unnecessary rigidity by banks has resulted in delay in opening accounts. The delay poses hurdles in the release of the first instalment to the beneficiary that is given during the seventh month of pregnancy,” a senior official of the department said.

Since these accounts are zero-balance ones with negligible transactions, banks with staff crunch and infrastructure problems are generally not keen on opening them in bulk. The problem was not with any particular bank, but certain branches irrespective of banks, the official said.

“While a certificate from the sarpanch is accepted as proof of residence by most branches, some do not accept it, causing unwanted problems,” he said, adding that in such cases the department has to request the collector to intervene in the matter.

However, three gramya banks in the state have taken the initiative of becoming National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT)-friendly, and thus, able to get involved in the fund-transfer process for the scheme. “It would be a great help if all gramya banks become NEFT enabled since we have a good network of gramya banks in the state,” said the official.

However, such problems notwithstanding the department has opened 4,24,625 accounts and transferred Rs 88 crore into these. “The best thing about the exercise is that such a large number of women have been ‘financially included’. They now have their own bank accounts, which until yesterday was a dream for them. Besides, it has helped ensure that pregnant mothers can take care of themselves and their newborns,” said director of social welfare Sujata R. Kartikeyan.

The programme was launched in October last year.