E-Paper
70,000 families to get free ₹5 lakh health insurance from August 15
Families found eligible for health cover under Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Swasthya Mission through 2011 Census; scheme to be launched on August 15.
Over 70,000 poor families in Chandigarh will benefit from free ₹5-lakh health insurance under the Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Swasthya Mission (PMRSM).
The scheme, which offers secondary and tertiary care hospitalisation to underprivileged families, will be launched on August 15. Out of the total families eligible for the scheme in Chandigarh , 68,447 live in urban areas, while 2,821 are in villages.
The Union ministry of health and family welfare has organised a one-day workshop to sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the central government and five states — Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand and Chandigarh — at Shimla on May 14.
Speaking to HT, UT home secretary Anurag Agarwal said, “The scheme will benefit over 70,000 families in Chandigarh. The MoU will detail responsibilities and obligations of National Health Agency (NHA) and state government. This is a pre-requisite for rolling out PMRSM.”
He said the families were found eligible based on the 2011 Census. The beneficiary families refer to those families figuring in the Socio-Economic Caste Census (SECC) database under the deprivation criteria specified or any additional categories as may be decided by the central government from time to time under PMRSM.
The benefit cover refers to the package of benefits that the insured families will receive under PMRSSM, as may be decided by the central government from time to time, he added.
Finance minister Arun Jaitley had rolled out Ayushman Bharat, a national health protection scheme, in his 2018 Union Budget to provide holistic health care to around 10 crore poor and vulnerable families, including preventive healthcare as well as primary, secondary and tertiary care.
Later, NHA was established to operationalise the scheme at the national level, and to roll out the scheme in coordination with the various state governments.
The expenditure incurred in premium payment will be shared between the central and state governments in specified ratio as per the Union ministry of finance guidelines.
