BENGALURU: In last year’s budget, Union finance minister Arun Jaitley promised a health cover of Rs 1 lakh per poor family under the National Health Protection Scheme, which was meant to replace the UPA government’s Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY). However, with the programme yet to see the light of day, the Centre is forced to continue with RSBY, which seems to be losing ground.
An RTI application filed by TOI has revealed that the number of states covered under RSBY has fallen to 15 in 2016-17, the lowest since 2008, when the scheme was launched.
Sources in the Union health ministry say most states are not keen on implementing RSBY. "We have been asking every state to implement RSBY to provide cashless health insurance to BPL households and 11 other defined categories of unorganized workers. But unfortunately, many have opted out for various reasons. While some are not interested to continue the Congress’ flagship scheme and are awaiting the new one, others claim to have their own insurance schemes," said a senior Union health ministry official.
He said they have already got an extension for RSBY till March 2018. "It will be replaced only when the new scheme is introduced," he added. Introduced by the labour ministry in 2008 for poor unorganized workers, RSBY was extended to all BPL families after the health ministry took over it in 2015. Under RSBY, cashless health cover up to Rs 30,000 is provided for a maximum of five members of a family.
The RTI reply revealed that only 15 states — Karnataka, Kerala, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Bihar, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura — were covered under RSBY in 2016-17. Of these, 10 have non-BJP chief ministers, which indicates that most BJP-ruled states have opted out. The number of enrolled families dropped from 4.13 crore in 2015-16 to 3.63 crore in 2016-17. The number of empanelled private hospitals also came down from 7,865 in 2009-10 to 4,926 in 2016-17.
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