PANAJI: Announcing that the ‘Deen Dayal Swasthya Seva Yojana’ will be finalised in three months time, Deputy Chief Minister Francis D’Souza on Monday said the health insurance scheme would cover the entire population of Goa, with three lakh families.
D’Souza, who also holds health portfolio, told ‘The Navhind Times’ after attending a review meeting at Secretariat, Porvorim, that the government has completed the process like pre-bid consultation and replies to bidders’ queries.
Oral queries from bidders, financial bid and cabinet approval will follow soon.
Registration of beneficiaries by the selected insurance company will help the people in availing the benefits of the proposed scheme.
The government has envisaged the scheme to provide its people quality medical care, hospitalisation and surgery in government and private hospitals.
The review meeting was attended by Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar, D’Souza, legislators Vishnu Wagh, Dr Pramod Sawant, Sidharth Kunkaliekar, finance secretary Dr Sharat Chauhan, director of health services Dr Sanjeev Dalvi and other officials.
At the meeting, presentations were made on the proposed scheme by the officials
“The scheme will cover 15 lakh population of Goa, which includes three lakhs families from the state … Before finalizing the scheme the government is working out the modalities including effective benefit of this scheme to the people of Goa…” D’Souza said, adding that finalization of the scheme has been delayed as it entails a lot of formalities and procedures.
The proposed scheme aims to benefit all the resident population of the state of Goa. ‘Resident population’ is defined as a person residing in Goa for five or more years. The unit of enrollment for this scheme is family and the coverage under the scheme would be provided for all the families. This would comprise the household head, and other members. For the purpose of the scheme, household head would require to produce residence proof. The insurance cover will be up to Rs 2.5 lakh per annum for a family of three or less members and up to Rs 4 Lakh for a family of four and more members. The insurance benefits can be availed individually or collectively by members of the family.
All the public health providers are automatically eligible for empanelment. However, in the initial phase, only Goa Medical College, both the district hospitals and the sub-district hospital at Ponda will be covered, where as the rest of the government hospitals will be included in due course at the discretion of the government.
The private health providers, which provide hospitalisation and/or daycare services, would be eligible for inclusion under the insurance scheme, subject to fulfillment of such requirements for empanelment as may be agreed between the Goa government and insurer.
The registration fee under the scheme will be Rs 200 for a family of three or less members and Rs 300 for family of four and above. However, concession of 50 per cent will be given to OBC category of non-creamy layer, SC/ST categories and differently-abled head of family.
The premium will be paid by the Goa government to the insurance company on receipt of the list of beneficiaries along with the necessary documents from the company.