The Punjab Government has decided to expedite the process of enrolment and distribution of 28.50 lakh blue cards under its ambitious Atta Dal scheme by February. With this, the Government would initiate the preparation of “smart health cards” under cashless health insurance schemes launched for the farmers, traders, labourers in the State.
Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal has asked the Deputy Commissioners of all districts to take necessary steps for the enrolment and distribution of smart blue cards under the scheme, also to be used under Bhagat Puran Singh Sehat Bima Yojna.
Recently, Punjab Government launched a cashless health insurance scheme aimed at benefitting approximately two lakh labourers, two lakh traders and 10 lakh farmers of the State.
Sukhbir, reviewing all the welfare and developmental schemes in a meeting with the DCs on Monday, instructed the concerned departments to expedite the process of making proper arrangements of to cover all the beneficiaries giving them prior intimation besides involving elected representatives in the process.
He also directed that the meeting of district-level advisory committees and district grievance committees should be convened in the first week of every month by the cabinet ministers.
Besides, Sukhbir asked the Chief Secretary Sarvesh Kaushal to issue orders regarding this and also directed that Chief Parliamentary Secretaries would head the advisory committees and divisional grievance committees at sub-divisional level every month.
In an important decision, Sukhbir appointed the Chief Secretary as the nodal officer to supervise the blue card and cashless health insurance card schemes.
He also made the DCs and SDMs the nodal officers of welfare schemes at district and sub-divisional level and further instructed the DCs to review progress of all welfare schemes every Monday and send a consolidated report.
Sukhbir asked the DCs to carry out a comprehensive review of empanelled hospitals under cashless health insurance scheme and recommend the inclusion of reputed hospital, if any, besides asking for those hospitals to be struck off the list which don’t have adequate facilities.
He asked the State Health Department to design a logo for empanelled hospitals so that the beneficiaries could easily be able to recognize the health institutions. In addition, he also instructed them to convene meetings of committees constituted under rural and urban missions every Monday.
Reviewing the progress of 'sewa kendars' being setup in the rural and urban areas, Sukhbir revealed that 2174 sewa kendars would be launched on Baisakhi across the state. He asked the Chief Secretary to take stock of the preparations.
Concentrating on the skill development sector, Sukhbir asked the Technical Education and Industrial Training Secretary RK Verma to accelerate the pace of constructing 150 skill centers in villages and towns which would cost Rs 25 lakh per center.