Sonia Gandhi to roll out health scheme

In what may be seen as one of the soft-launches of its Lok Sabha campaign in Maharashtra, the state government will get Congress president Sonia Gandhi and NCP chief and Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar to roll out the Rajiv Gandhi Jeevandayee Arogya Yojana (RGJAY) across the state.

The cashless medical insurance scheme, which has been launched in eight districts of the state including Mumbai, will now cover a total of around 2.11 crore socially disadvantaged families.
Gandhi and Pawar will launch the scheme on Thursday in Nagpur at a function where chief minister Prithviraj Chavan, his deputy Ajit Pawar, health minister Suresh Shetty will also be present.

The RGJAY will cover beneficiaries under the above poverty line and below poverty line categories and Antyodaya and Annapurna ration cards holders and people with an income limit of less than Rs1 lakh annually in 30 specialised categories and 972 procedures.

The scheme covers hospitalisation expenses of Rs1.50 lakh per family on a floater basis annually in empaneled hospitals. The state government has signed a memorandum of understanding with the National Insurance Company (NIC).

Health department officials said that after the launch, the RGJAY would be rolled out across the state except in about 700 gram panchayats and 17 panchayat samitis where elections were underway.

Presently, the scheme is being implemented in eight districts of Maharashtra – Mumbai city and suburbs, Amravati, Nanded, Dhule, Gadchiroli, Solapur and Raigad – since July 2012. It covers around 52.37 lakh families, of which, a majority are in Mumbai alone. A total of over 1.05 lakh procedures have been performed so far in these eight districts under the scheme. The earlier scheme, Jeevandayee Yojana, which the new scheme will replace, covers only four procedures related to diseases of the brain, heart, kidney and cancer. The state government will
pay a premium of Rs333 plus taxes per family to the public sector NIC.