Rs 750 Cr allotted for YSR Bima, govt took entire responsibility of scheme: CM Jagan
This was necessitated after the Centre, paying 50 per cent of premium, stopped paying its share from April 2020
VIJAYAWADA: The YSRC government on Thursday revised the guidelines for the YSR Bima scheme enabling the state government to directly pay the insurance amount to family of the deceased and make insurance claims easier. This was necessitated after the Centre, paying 50 per cent of premium, stopped paying its share from April 2020, forcing the AP government to step in. Apart from that the Centre also put more clauses and closed the existing group insurance system and made it mandatory that every person in the family has a bank account.
Chief Minister Y.S . Jagan Mohan Reddy pointed that the state government had brought 1.2 crore families under the insurance coverage and paid premium to banks. However, only 62.5 lakh accounts could be opened and the remaining accounts were yet to be opened by banks though AP had credited the insurance premium. He mentioned that the banks which had to follow up about individual insurance claims with the insurance firms to process the registration were unable to do so on time. This bottleneck led to a severe delay in receipt of claims.
In an additional clause put by the Centre, a 45-day lien period from the day of account opening meant that if someone dies within 45 days, the insurance will not be paid. Due to this, around 12,039 families who lost someone, after being enrolled with the 45-day lien period, were not eligible for the claims. The Chief Minister said that due to this, the state government came forward and paid for all those 12,039 claims at a cost of Rs 254 crore.
“After witnessing all the chaos, the government took the entire responsibility of the scheme and shall clear the claims within one month of receiving the application. The responsibility for screening of insurance applications has been given to village/ward secretariats monitored by the Joint Collectors. Any eligible person who was left out from YSR Bima can call toll free number 155214 for getting registered or to resolve their issues related,” the Chief Minister said.
The Chief Minister launched the 'YSR Bima' scheme with the new guidelines on Thursday. He said that in order to support 1.32 lakh families through the scheme, the state government had allocated Rs 750 crore for the year 2021-22. In the last two years, the state government had spent Rs 1,307 crore for YSR Bima.
Speaking on the occasion, the Chief Minister said that the government has prioritised public health care soon after forming the government. The annual income for being eligible under Aarogyasri scheme was fixed at Rs 5 lakh and the number of treatments increased to 2,450.
He recalled that as per promises made during elections, the government had launched YSR Bima, an insurance scheme to support those families who lost their breadwinner. He further stated that about 1.30 lakh families have been brought under the insurance coverage.
Under the scheme, an insurance amount of Rs 1 lakh will be paid if the beneficiary aged between 18 to 50 years, who is a breadwinner of the family, succumbs to natural death. A sum of Rs 5 lakh will be paid if the beneficiary in the 18 to 70 age group dies in an accident.
Minister for labour and employment Gummanuru Jayaram, Special Chief Secretary, Labour, G. Anantharamu, Special Chief Secretary Ajay Jain, Principal Secretary (PR&RD) Gopalakrishna Dwivedi, Special Commissioner (Labour) Rekha Rani, SERP CEO Rajababu and other officials were present at the event.