No more gold rings for newborns

CHENNAI: The city Corporation’s ambitious project of free gold rings for newborn babies, has hit a roadblock as the nod needed for floating fresh tenders hasn't come since the new government took over.With a view to popularise pure Tamil names for children, Mayor M Subramanian announced the new scheme in 2009, where a child born at any of the civic body-run maternity hospitals and named in Tamil would get one-gram gold ring as birthday gift.Since 2009 up to February this year, the civic body had distributed about 4,500 gold rings to newborns with Tamil names across its 10 zones.According to Corporation sources, about 500 gold rings, valuing around `11 lakhs in current market price, were recalled to civic body’s treasury on March 1, the day when a general election for the State was notified.On March 1, Mayor Subramanian was scheduled to distribute 1,000 such gold rings to beneficiaries selected from all 10 zones. But the election’s immediate effect of model code of conduct had halted the gold ring distribution that day.However, civic body officials were able to distribute about 500 rings to its beneficiaries until the model code came into effect in the evening.Though the remaining 500 gold rings, weighing about half a kilo, are now safe in the Corporation treasury, the future of the free scheme is uncertain as the civic body has stopped floating fresh tenders for the supply of rings since February this year.While no reason has been given for stopping the ongoing free scheme that was aimed at popularising Tamil names, sources in the Corporation told City Express that concurrence to continue the scheme hasn’t come from the state government yet.It may be noted that Mayor Subramanian had launched the scheme on the then Chief Minister M Karunanidhi’s 86th birthday (June 3, 2009) and the then Deputy Chief Minister M K Stalin distributed rings to the first batch of beneficiaries on July 23, 2009.Besides other beneficiaries, Rajeshwari, Chennai Corporation’s Councillor for Ward number-19, has also received a gold ring for naming her son, Thiruchelvan from the first distribution. She delivered her baby boy at one the Corporation’s maternity hospitals.