Girl Friday: Here’s the Incredible Initiative by a Meerut Hospital for Gender Equality

Dayawati Hospital in Meerut has a very unique and laudable ritual. Every mother who gives birth to a girl child in the hospital on Fridays, does not have to pay the cost of delivery. So far, at least 12 girls have been delivered free of cost.

“No expenses except the charge of the medicines will be taken for the delivery of a girl child on Friday in Dayawati Hospital,” say the banners on the hospital walls.

Picture for representation only. Source: Nick Cunard/Flickr

On other days, the cost for a normal delivery is Rs. 5,000, and it costs around Rs. 8,000 for a C-section. But every Friday, Pramod Baliyan, director of the 45-bed hospital, allows the delivery of girl children for free. Earlier, the other doctors were worried that they would have to shell out money from their own pockets for this initiative, but Baliyan agreed that he would pay for these deliveries alone. So the doctor’s fee and nursing home fee are excluded from the bill of the families who have girl children on Fridays.

“I had been thinking of doing something for the benefit of girl children for a long time now, but could not come up with an idea until I saw all these campaigns and advertisements about the ‘Beti Bachao Beti Padhao’ initiative of PM Narendra Modi. So I thought, why not make deliveries of infant girls free at my hospital? I started the initiative on November 1 last year,” 42-year-old Baliyan told The Times of India.

He chose Friday because it is a very important day in terms of religious beliefs for both Hindus and Muslims.

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