New Delhi: Introduced during the UPA regime, the government is all set to revamp the existing Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY), a scheme that provides cashless health insurance of up to Rs 30,000 per year to Below Poverty Line (BPL) families.
While the scheme is at present managed by the labour ministry, it will soon be transferred to the health ministry. The ministry has already worked on the broad contours of the scheme and a meeting to this effect has already been taken in the PMO recently.
According to health ministry, the existing scheme once streamlined will be the part of newly-proposed National Health Assurance Mission (NHAM) — which plans to offer a basket of services by providing 50 essential medicines, diagnostic services etc. The scheme is likely to be started from January in a phased wise manner.
To start with, the RSBY will be responsible for providing secondary health services, unlike the NHAM — which will help poor get free treatment.
