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AAP, BJP spar over retired employees’ insurance funds
New Delhi:
New Delhi:
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Tuesday alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled civic bodies have collected Rs 221 crore from retired employees in the name of cashless insurance in private hospitals but did not pay the money to private hospitals.
Senior AAP leader and the party’s MCD in-charge Durgesh Pathak on Tuesday said it was a “scam” and the money should be returned to the retired employees.
“The BJP ruled MCD has collected Rs 221 crore from retired employees in the name of cashless insurance in private hospitals but did not pay a single paisa to the private hospitals. There are around 34,000 pensioners under the BJP-ruled MCD and these people are suffering massively due to the misgovernance and corruption. These people had opted cashless insurance scheme under the MCD and now they are suffering,” Pathak alleged.
According to the scheme, retired employees would pay a certain amount to the civic bodies, which would ensure free treatment in any hospital in Delhi.
Pathak said the civic bodies took money from every employee -- as Group A employees gave Rs 1.2 lakh per person, Group B employees gave Rs 78,000, Group C employees Rs 54,000 per person and Group D employees gave Rs 30,000 per person.
“These retirees deposited around R.221 crore in the account of the MCDs. The civic bodies are supposed to pay regular bills to the registered hospitals under the scheme but did not pay a single penny,” Pathak said.
Jai Prakash, mayor North Delhi Municipal Corporation, rejected the allegations. “The AAP is in the habit of levelling new and baseless allegations every day. All payment in connection with providing cashless health care benefits have been made to hospitals on time before the coronavirus outbreak. After the pandemic, the payment process has slowed down but we are working to streamline it. There is no scam in MCD,” he said.
Praveen Shankar Kapoor, Delhi BJP spokesperson dismissed AAP allegations. “Due to financial crunch, there are problems in providing cashless treatment to pensioners in North and East DMCs during Covid. We urge Durgesh Pathak, if he is even little sensitive towards civic employees and pensioners, to ask the Arvind Kejriwal government to immediately release municipal funds, which will resolve all the crisis,” Kapoor said.
