Payments worth Rs 355 crore under Himcare health insurance scheme pending: Sukhu in Assembly

Shimla, Sep 9 (PTI) Payments worth Rs 355 crore under the cashless health insurance scheme Himcare including over Rs 127 crore of private hospitals are pending, Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu said in the state assembly on Monday.

Intervening in reply to questions from BJP MLAs, he said that private hospitals were paid more and a Cabinet Sub-committee is looking into complaints of irregularities by them.

The Himcare scheme provides cashless treatment coverage up to Rs 5 lakh per year per family in government hospitals in the state and empanelled hospitals.

The Sahara scheme provides financial assistance of Rs 3000 per month to poor patients suffering from specified diseases like Parkinson's, Malignant Cancer, Paralysis, Muscular Dystrophy, Hemophilia and Thalassemia.

The budget allocation was only Rs 20 crore but Rs 1,150 crore has been paid, he said adding that the government hospitals are "in a pathetic condition and have become transfer (Referral) hospitals". He said it would have been better if this amount was used for strengthening the government hospitals.

"We have started the process of strengthening government hospitals and 400 posts have been sanctioned for Indira Gandhi Medical College Hospital Shimla and 450 in Dr Rajendra Prasad Government Medical College and Hospital, Tanda", he said and added that process of recruitment of 200 doctors through HP Public Service Commission has been initiated.

Sukhu said that Rs 60 crore has been released for IGMC, Tanda and PGI so that the poor patients undergoing treatment there do not face any inconvenience.

He said the government was not shutting the Himcare scheme but ensuring that the scheme was run in a proper manner.

He said that Adarsh Swasth Sansthan are being opened in all the 68 assembly segments in the state and the government would strengthen the Sahara Scheme and eligible poor people would be included while ineligible persons would be deleted.

Earlier, the Leader of Opposition in the state assembly Jairam Thakur said that the people are not getting money under Himcare and Sahara schemes.

Replying to the main question, Health and Family Welfare Minister Dhani Ram Shandil informed that out of 16,798 applications received under the Sahara scheme,11419 have been accepted while 2,43,614 out of 2,45,141 applications under Himcare scheme have been approved. PTI BPL RT