Announced with much fanfare by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in the Union Budget 2016-17, the National Health Protection Scheme promising health cover up to Rs1 lakh per poor family will see the light of the day next year only as it will entail setting up extensive IT infrastructure to ensure its smooth execution.
“The contours of the scheme are yet being decided and it will be implemented in 2017-18,” Union Health Minister JP Nadda told reporters at an interaction.
A senior official later said that the beneficiaries under the proposed scheme will be listed not merely on the basis of income but also based on deprivation and “identified occupational” categories as per the socio-economic caste census (SECC).
Earlier, Nadda claimed that there was no shortage of funds for the sector. In fact, he said, the health sector has been given “top” priority and there has been a “sizable” increase of 21 per cent in this year’s budget allocation.
last year, budget allocation was Rs25,946 crore while this year, Rs31,300 crore has been allocated, Nadda said adding that it was perhaps the first in several years where a Revised Estimate (RE) was not reduced in relation to the Budget Estimate (BE).
Reiterating that fund was never an issue, Nadda blamed the State Governments for failing to spend the money allocated to them for capacity building and setting up infrastructure. He was replying to a query on reasons for poor health infrastructure across the country resulting huge out of pocket expenditure for poor.
Nadda said that under National Health Mission, there has been an increase of Rs705 crore while the medical education sector has also witnessed an increase in its budget by Rs1,263 crore.
The Minister said that this is in addition to the total budgetary allocation of Rs 5,429 crore to this sector. He said that for AIIMS in New Delhi, apart from the allocation of Rs 1,000, an additional Rs 450 crore has been allocated.
In his Budget address in the Parliament late last month, the Finance Minister had expressed concern that a serious illness of family member(s) causes severe stress on the financial condition of poor and economically weak families, shaking the foundation of their economic security.
“In order to help such families, the Government will launch a new health protection scheme which will provide health cover up-to rupees one lakh per family,” he had said. For Senior citizens of the age 60 years and above belonging to this category, an additional top-up package up to Rs30,000 will be provided, Jaitley had added.