LOVE YOUR MOTHER AND DO NOT TAKE THEIR SACRIFICE FOR GRANTED

13 May 2018

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Today is a very special day. As a tribute to the undying love of mothers and their influence in the society, people across the globe celebrate the second Sunday of May as International Mother’s Day. The great President Abraham Lincoln once said, “All that I am, or I hope to be, I owe to my Angel mother”. It is true that mothers are our guardian angel. Only they have the gift to love us unconditionally and hence, it is our duty to reciprocate with an equal amount of affection.

The blessings of our elders especially our mother play a vital role in deciding the course of our lives and thus taking care of them is our duty. Something kept nettling me for a long time. I would very often spot pregnant women labourers picking heavy weights and working very hard to make their both ends meet. Their plight would move me to tears and I desperately wanted to do something for them. So, we recently introduced a scheme as a part of which pregnant women labourers will henceforth be provided Rs 4,000 before delivery so that they can rest at home, have good food and deliver healthy babies. To make certain the new mothers do not have to rush to work immediately after birth, they will also be provided Rs 12,000 to stay back at home to take care of the babies.

Mother care has been taken up by us as a priority. We started schemes like Sanjivani that provides free-of-cost ambulance services to expecting and new mothers and Janani Shishu Suraksha, under which free-of-cost medical treatment is provided to both mother and newborn for a year. In a bid to bring down Maternal Mortality Rate and promote institutional delivery, we introduced the first-of-its-kind Janani Suraksha Yojana as a part of which women in urban areas are provided Rs 1,000 and ones in rural areas are provided Rs 1,400 for institutional deliveries. It makes me happy that such efforts have helped in significantly bringing down MMR from 335 in 2005-06 to 222 currently. Although a lot still needs to be done, we have come a long way from where we started.

As much as we care for our mothers, we also need to shower the same amount of love and care to Mother Nature. Let us not forget she is the universal nurturer. In Madhya Pradesh, we are taking concrete steps to preserve and protect nature. We organized a 5-month long Narmada Seva Yatra to create awareness about conservation and rejuvenation of Maa Narmada, the lifeline of 7.5 crore people of the state. Besides, taking a slew of measures for her revival and conservation including the planting of more than 6 crore sapling, we also declared her a living entity. Efforts are underway to revive all other rivers of the state. Similarly, we have been taking several environmental-friendly measures from time to time. It is our collective responsibility to care for nature and love it the way it loves us.

I often hear startling news of kids abandoning their parents and even shoving them to old age home. It is beyond the fragment of my imagination how children can forsake their parents. If you ask me, doing so is a sin of the highest order. No matter where we are placed in life and busy with our work, we should not forget to care for our parents especially our mothers. We cannot imagine the amount of pain a mother has to go through to carry a child in her womb and bring her/him into this world. Thus, from the bottom of my heart, I request you to respect your mother, acknowledge the sacrifices she makes for you and not take her existence for granted. No matter how busy you are, spend time with your mother, for nothing under the sun can replace her love.