Punjab News In Patiala, just 25 PC PBL families have smart cards

Lily

B.R
Staff member
Patiala October 18:

The Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) is progressing at snail’s pace in Patiala. As per sources, the senior functionaries of the district administration are unhappy with the number of Below Poverty Line (BPL) families covered under the RSBY so far by the Health Department. Figures available with the shows that from 42,696 BPL families in Patiala, the administration has so far issued smart cards under the RSBY to just 10,870 BPL families.

Under the scheme, five members of a BPL family are given a health cover of Rs 30,000 and 75 per cent premium of Rs 450 annually is borne by the Centre and rest by the state government. The beneficiary has to pay only Rs 30. Notably, in January this year, Anil Swarup, Director General, Labour Welfare, the Government of India, had stated that Punjab had not fared well in implementing the RSBY. Swarup had gone on record stating that Haryana and Himachal Pradesh had shown remarkable results in implementing the scheme.

Expressing his views about the implementation of the scheme in Patiala, Deputy Commissioner Dipinder Singh admitted that he was not happy with the number of BPL families presently covered under the RSBY. He said strict instructions had already been issued to all Sub Divisional Magistrates (SDMs) and Block Development and Panchayat officers (BDPOs) to expedite the work of making the smart cards of the BPL families under the RSBY.

The SDMs and the BDPOs had been asked to take the assistance of the NGOs in spreading awareness among the BPL families about the scheme, so that maximum number of the BPL families get themselves enrolled for availing benefits of the scheme, said Dipinder. He has also directed the Health Department authorities that they should initiate the second phase of enrolling the BPL families under the RSBY, so that the left out BPL families in various blocks of Patiala got the benefit of the scheme. Meanwhile, as per the data available, so far the 10,870 BPL families in Patiala have been covered under the scheme.

 
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