Labour and Employment Minister Bijoyshree Routray on Thursday announced in the Assembly that MGNREGS and construction workers of 45 other categories of people will be brought under the purview of the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) by the State Government.
Making a statement, the Minister said that within the next couple of years all categories of people except the tax payers will be covered by the health insurance scheme.
Responding to Opposition allegation that the health insurance scheme has been a complete failure in the State, he admitted there have been some procedural and other mistakes in its implementation which the State Government is sincerely trying to set right.
The State has received the best award for enrolment of beneficiaries in the scheme. Out of the 52 lakh BPL families in Odisha, 33 lakh have been enrolled in the first year of its implementation. Target has been set to enrol 90 percent BPL families under the scheme during the year, Routray said and added that coverage of beneficiaries may also touch 100 percent.
Admitting that there are many procedural and other difficulties in the implementation, he said many BPL families do not want to be enrolled by depositing ` 30. Besides, many villages did not have BPL families in the last survey.
He, however, warned insurance companies to properly implement the scheme. Initiating the discussion, Santosh Singh Saluja (Cong) alleged that poor people have not benefited from the scheme as BPL survey has not been done for the last 16 years.
He alleged that the five insurance companies who have taken up the scheme are not properly implementing it. Five districts including Koraput, Sundargarh, Deogarh and Jagatsinghpur do not have even a single beneficiary under the scheme, Saluja said.
In villages people are not aware of such a scheme.
Despite tall claims a majority of primary health centres (PHCs) do not have doctors, he said. The Government lacks sincerity for implementing the scheme, Karendra Majhi (BJP) said that RSBY is a complete failure in Odisha.