Rautahat, January 8:

Government proposes, NGO disposes. NGO Mary stopes clinic is working against the family planning campaign of the Rautahat district health office, if official bigwigs at the district level are to be believed.

The clinic run by the nongovernmental organisation Mary Stopes, according to the district adminisitrative brass, is driving locals away from the vasectomy campaign launched by the district health office from December 30 to Bara’s Nijgarh, with enticements of greater benefits.

Faced with the situation, the Rautahat district administration office has initiated action against the Mary Stopes clinic.

Employees and agents of Mary Stopes have diverted women and men heading for the district headquarters, Gaur, by promising them more money at a vasectomy camp

at Bara, the hospital administration alleged. The government programme on the other hand does not promise of any monetary benefits for undergoing permanent contraception.

Head of Gaur hospital, Dr Ram Shanker Thakur said the government had set a target for Rautahat under the family planning head of 4,000 males and females this year. But the Mary Stopes clinic is working against the target, he alleged.

As the Stopes clinic had posted its agents around the hospital a written complaint was registered at the district administration office, Dr Thakur said. Nearly 1,200 women and men have taken recourse to vasectomy in the mobile camp till Friday, an assistant at the family planning campaign, Ramadhar Singh, said.

Head of the Nijgarh Mary Stopes clinic, Dinesh Thakur, denied the allegations levelled against his office. People are drawn to Mary Stopes on account of our quality service, he claimed. The DAO’s administrative officer Bishnu Prasad Poudel said they have launched an investigation into the issue.