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Rs 22 crore released for health insurance scheme in DK

Multi-purpose smart cards will be distributed to labourers
Last Updated 20 December 2009, 17:09 IST
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Addressing after inaugurating a district-level workshop organised for field key officers of RSBY at the Deputy Commissioner’s Officer here on Sunday, Minister said that the field officers should strive to implement the scheme successfully in the district.

Those beneficiaries, who possess the cards of Yashaswini Scheme of the state government can also avail the benefits of RSBY. Multi-purpose smart cards will be distributed to labourers in the unorganised sectors including construction workers under the scheme, he added.

Deputy Commissioner V Ponnuraj said that the scheme is being implemented only in rural areas of five districts including Dakshina Kannada, Shimoga, Bangalore Rural, Belgaum and Mysore. Beneficiaries in urban areas will be covered under the scheme in the next phase, he added.

The scheme will enable beneficiaries to have access to health facilities in private and government hospitals, DC said adding that the scheme has already been implemented successfully in Kerala state.

Mangalore South MLA N Yogish Bhat said that the government hospitals in the state should be upgraded for the successful implementation of the scheme.

Super speciality facilities should be introduced in all government hospitals. Initiative will be taken to hold discussion with corporate organisations with regard to the upgradation of government hospitals.

Corporate institutions can join hands to upgrade government hospitals utilising the benefits of income tax exemption, he added.

Only 42,000 beneficiaries

Though there are 1.10 lakh BPL families in the district, who are deserved to be the beneficiaries under RSBY, currently the scheme benefits have been extended to only 42,000 families. Following this, majority of BPL families in the district are being deprived of their privileges.

DC Ponnuraj informed that the district administration had conducted survey only in rural areas in 2007 and accordingly a list of 42,000 BPL families was sent to the centre.
Though the number of BPL families increased to 1,10,000 in the survey conducted in 2008, the Centre was not ready to accept the new list, he said adding that the list of 2007 was approved by the central government for the implementation of the RSBY scheme.

Reacting to the lacunae, Minister Palemar said that the government will make efforts to include all beneficiaries under the scheme. State will write to the centre include all BPL families in rural and urban areas in the beneficiaries list under the RSBY, he added.

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(Published 20 December 2009, 17:09 IST)

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