With Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai announcing the re-introduction of Yeshaswini health scheme for farmers, there are doubts about duplication of claims by beneficiaries as the scheme has already been subsumed under Ayushman Bharat-Arogya Karnataka (AB-ArK).
In his maiden Budget presented on Friday, the Chief Minister said the Government has decided to re-introduce “Yeshaswini” scheme with modification to fulfil a long pending demand of farmers. “Under this scheme, quality medical facilities will be made available to farmer families of rural areas. A sum of ₹300 crore will be provided by the State Government for this,” he said.
Yeshaswini, launched in 2003 by the State Government, was one of the largest self-funded healthcare schemes in the country. Covering 823 defined surgical procedures, the scheme enabled rural beneficiaries to avail cashless treatment costing up to ₹2 lakh for a single admission every year for an annual contribution of ₹250. Urban beneficiaries were able to avail treatment costing up to ₹2.5 lakh for an annual contribution of ₹710. About 40 lakh members of cooperative bodies in urban areas were eligible under this scheme.
When Arogya Karnataka was rolled out in the State in March 2018, the seven existing health schemes were merged under one head. The idea was to eliminate overlap of multiple health schemes and duplication in fund release.
Subsequently, after Arogya Karnataka was co-branded with Ayushman Bharat in October 2018, the annual health cover (for 1,650 procedures under Arogya Karnataka) of ₹1.5 lakh a year for a BPL family of five (with additional assistance of ₹50,000 in some cases), was raised to ₹5 lakh.
Official sources in the Health Department said the department was not consulted by the Cooperation Department before chalking out the proposal. “The very purpose of merging the scheme with AB-ArK was to avoid duplication. If it is to be separated again from AB-Ark, there will be a lot of issues and the possibility of duplication of claims will be high. It may not be feasible to have a separate scheme for farmers, when the entire population is covered under AB-ArK,” sources said.
State Health Commissioner D. Randeep said there will be more clarity on the scheme only after a Government Order.
Cooperation Minister S.T. Somashekar told The Hindu that the scheme was re-introduced following demand from the farming community. “We will work out the modalities in such a way that there will not be any duplication. Similar to the original scheme, we plan to cover beneficiaries both in rural and urban areas. However, it will be modified and the annual contribution to be paid by the members will be enhanced. We are still working on it,” he said.
S.R. Umashankar, Principal Secretary, Cooperation Department, said suitable mechanisms are being worked out to ensure there is no duplication. “This scheme was running successfully alongside other health schemes before it was subsumed under Ab-ArK. The modified scheme will be run in a similar manner now,” he said.
“We will work out the modalities before bringing out the Government Order. As we can start the scheme only in the next financial year, we hold deliberations with domain experts, officials from the Health Department and medical practitioners and work out the modalities,” Mr. Umashankar said.
