BHUBANESWAR: The Centre has directed the Odisha government to immediately implement the cashless treatment of road accident victims scheme-2025 in letter and spirit without any further delay.
Even as more than two months have passed since the scheme was notified, several states, including Odisha, are yet to begin the process to implement it. The new scheme entitles every road accident victim to receive treatment up to Rs 1.5 lakh for a maximum of seven days from the date of accident without any upfront payment.
The states can use the existing technological platforms, including the electronic detailed accident report (eDAR) of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) and Transaction Management System (TMS) of the National Health Authority (NHA) to enable seamless coordination between hospitals and police for implementation of the scheme.
At a recent review meeting chaired by Union Road Transport and Highways Secretary V Umashankar, it was found that though Odisha has already migrated to TMS 2.0, there is no information about the designated agency, point of contact and other details essential for implementing the cashless treatment scheme.
The MoRTH has asked the state government to submit details of the designated nodal agency, point of contact, confirmation of active TMS login by district collectors, details of all collectors for opening of accounts and grievance redressal officer from district road safety committee within 10 days.
The Centre has clarified that while the cashless scheme leverages the Ayushman Bharat platform, it is a statutory scheme under law and is not a benefit scheme. Therefore, the cashless scheme will be applicable to all individuals irrespective of income criteria and it is different from the Ayushman Bharat scheme.
The secretary has urged the state to volunteer for the testing phase and inform NHA accordingly to make it a collaborative exercise to proactively identify and resolve any issues that may arise in the future. This will help ensure smoother implementation of the scheme, he said.
For payment related to other-than-insured cases, the ministry has informed that the bank accounts being opened in the name of district collectors are RBI accounts and payment to hospitals require authorisation through a digital signature certificate (DSC). Accordingly, the collectors have been asked to obtain their DSCs, if they have not already done so, and configure it for the cashless treatment scheme for road accident victims.
“If district collectors do not approve the payment within 10 days, an additional window of five days will be provided. If there is still no response after the extended period, the payment approval will be escalated to MoRTH. Any interest accrued beyond the initial 10-day period will be borne by the respective district as specified in the notified guidelines,” read the communication to the state government.