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A Tribune Special
Free treatment up to Rs 1 lakh for 7 lakh poor families
Sarbjit Dhaliwal
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 4
Seven lakh poor families in the urban and rural areas will get free treatment up to Rs 1 lakh in hospitals empanelled by the Punjab Government. The government will pay the premium of the health insurance cover that will be provided to these families.

The Chief Minister, Capt Amarinder Singh, has cleared the proposal in this regard and directed the Finance and Health Departments to draw up the criteria to identify the poor families to be covered under the scheme.

The scheme, if implemented properly, has the potential to influence the voting pattern.

Confirming the proposal okayed by Capt Amarinder Singh, the Finance and Health Minister, Mr Surinder Singla, said he had told the officials concerned to finalise the criteria within a week. He said that according to his estimate about seven lakh families would be covered. However, the number could go up, he added.

The government would buy a health insurance cover of Rs 50 crore per annum for the poor families. Officials would negotiate with various insurance companies on the fixing of the per person premium.

He said Punjab would be the first state in the country to implement such a scheme.

Poor persons would be entitled to free treatment in even super-speciality hospitals such as Fortis, Escorts and the PGI. It would be a sort of group insurance scheme familywise. Earlier, the state government had provided health insurance cover mainly to farmers who are members of various cooperative societies in the rural areas. As poor families are landless, they are not members of such cooperative societies.

The scheme for the poor is expected to be modelled on that drawn up for farmers. Under the Cooperative Health Insurance Scheme, the head of the family is to pay Rs 330 per annum as insurance cover. And on the payment of Rs 50 each, other members of the family can become beneficiaries under the scheme. A family of five persons has to pay Rs 450 plus service tax as premium under a health insurance cover of up to Rs 2 lakh.

However, under the scheme for the poor, the state government will pay the premium for all families covered and the limit of expenditure on treatment will be Rs 1 lakh. Under the scheme, the beneficiaries will be issued cards. They will be able get themselves admitted to any of the about 300 hospitals in the state by showing the card.

If the scheme is finalised in time, the Chief Minister is expected to announce it in the Punjab Vidhan Sabha during its session on September 15.