'Give publicity to insurance scheme'

Addressing a district-level workshop for FKO of RSBY, the Minister said that wide publicity must be given to this scheme with posters, street plays and awareness camps.

The scheme is available only in five districts and government is planning to extend the scheme to all the districts in the State by allocating Rs 35.98 crore, he said. "One lakh construction workers have been identified and issued smart cards. The Central government has instructed the State government to bring these workers under the health insurance cover," said Bache Gowda.

M N Ravishankar, Commissioner of Labour said that an amount of Rs 22 crore has been allocated for the year 2009-10, out of which Rs 5.51crore has been contributed by State government and Rs 2 crore has already being released.  

"As per the guidelines issued by the Ministry of Labour and Employment, tender process was completed and National Insurance Company Ltd has been selected which has quoted the lowest tender rate,” he said. Rastriya Swasthya Bima Yojana envisages cashless health insurance cover upto Rs 30,000 a year on hospitalisation to BPL family in the unorganised sector.