The central government has a scheme in aid of poor and underprivileged women who deliver babies in hospitals. Any woman who is more than 19 years old and gets up to second live baby is paid 600 INR. The scheme is to aid her in caring for herself and her baby.
“Sir, how can we pay this woman, who is exactly 19 years old? She has to be above 19” the clerk said.
I looked at her indoor paper. The indoor paper of each patient is computer generated. The clerk feeds data and printout becomes the indoor paper of that patient. This patient’s age was recorded as 19 years, 0 months and 0 days.
“When a woman says she is 19 years old, it means she has completed 19 years and is in the twentieth year” I explained.
“But how?” he asked.
“How old are you?” I asked him.
“Fifty six” he said.
“Is your birthday today?” I asked him.
“No! It was three months ago” he said.
“But you stated that you were 56 years old, not 56 years 3 months old” I said.
“Sir, I understand that. But this is government matter. The rule says incentive should not be given unless the woman is above 19. This paper says she is exactly 19 years old.”
“OK. Let is see the date and time of admission” I said. “She seems to be admitted yesterday at 10:00 A.M. That time she was exactly 19 years old. She delivered at 4:30 P.M. So she was 19 years and 6.5 hours old when she delivered. Is that above 19?”
“It is” he said grudgingly.
“Then you can pay her 600 INR, following the rule” I said.
He paid her that amount.
I understood that the computer of the registration clerk was programmed to record months and days as zero if a particular value was not provided. The clerk did not bother to ask and record those months and days, probably because he thought it did not matter. The only thing that could be done to help the patient receive the amount due her was to do what I did. It does take imagination to beat the civic clerks’ attitude and their computers’ deficient programs.
