Three years after it was introduced by the Union Government, the Rashtriya Swastha Bima Yojana (RSBY) is yet to be implemented in Arunachal Pradesh, because a memorandum of agreement has not been signed between the State and the insurance company.
The Centrally-sponsored health programme, aimed at helping below poverty line citizens to afford the cost and expense of maintaining health of their families and which was rolled out in the country in 2008, has been implemented in all States of India.
MOU NOT SIGNED
According to requirements of the scheme, the State needs to ink a memorandum of agreement with a private insurance firm for the process.
The State Government engaged Gurgaon-based Royal Sundaram Insurance Company Private Ltd and the task of executing the scheme in the State was given to departments such as rural development, planning, labour and health.
When asked, the joint director of the rural development department, said the Government’s share of Rs 30 lakh had been sanctioned for the scheme, but delay in signing an MoA between the State and the insurance company was perhaps holding up things.
With the State Government’s go-ahead signal to the insurance company to launch an awareness campaign about the scheme, the company even issued RSBY beneficiary smart cards to 39,615 BPL families out of a total 80,000 BPL families.
The General Hospitals at Naharlagun and Pasighat were empanelled and the State Government released Rs 30 lakh for the implementation of the scheme.
But then it was caught in a groove somewhere, all to the frustration of the intended beneficiaries.
Neither the officials of the executing departments of the Government nor the agents of the insurance company knew where things went wrong.
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/states/insurance-scheme-for-poor-yet-to-take-off-in-arunachal-pradesh/article4170883.ece
