BENGALURU: The Karnataka government approved the creation of a Rs 35-crore corpus fund to provide rare medical treatments for people belonging to the Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST).
This initiative is intended to address the financial burden of high-cost treatments. The fund will be managed through the Suvarna Arogya Suraksha Trust (SAST) and will prioritise treatments not covered under existing State and Union government health schemes.
Initially, the Social Welfare Department was tasked with implementing the budget provision. However, the responsibility was later transferred to the Department of Health and Family Welfare after discussions chaired by the Chief Minister.
The corpus fund will focus on addressing treatment needs for rare and expensive diseases by utilising interest generated from the allocated amount. The government revised the allocation under the SCSP/TSP budget to Rs 47 crore, ensuring sufficient resources to sustain the initiative.
A total of 33 rare and high-cost treatments were initially included under the scheme. However, 16 were later excluded as they are already covered by programmes such as Ayushman Bharat – Arogya Karnataka and the National Policy for Rare Diseases (NPRD). The revised scheme will now support 17 treatments exclusively for SC/ST patients.
The government emphasised that if any of the approved treatments are included in broader state or national schemes in the future, they will be removed from the corpus fund’s scope to avoid duplication of benefits.
The scheme will continue under the guidance of the existing technical and executive committees, which will oversee its implementation and develop additional guidelines for rare and costly treatments.