2.2 cr health insurance beneficiaries in state

The publicity hoardings about various schemes put up across the state recently by the government are flashing some astonishing figures. Going by the figures, 2.2 crore of the state’s nearly 3 crore population has been covered under the Sehat Bima Yojana, which means 73 per cent of the population of Punjab is under its ambit.

Another figure reads that 1.37 crore beneficiaries are covered under the Atta-Dal scheme, which implies that as many as 45 per cent Punjabis have annual family income less than Rs 60,000. Officials say their figures are very conservative and well within the parameters defined by the Central Government.
Anindita Mitra, Director Public Relations and Director Food Supplies, says, “The Centre has frozen the limit of number of beneficiaries of the scheme in Punjab to 1.41 crore. This is because the government has fixed a limit of covering up to 54 per cent rural population and upto 49 per cent urban population under the scheme. We can incorporate 4 lakh more beneficiaries under the scheme.”

Officials said 36 lakh families of Punjab had been covered under it. “We have been continuously deleting undue beneficiaries. Our survey will end in December,” Mitra said.
Monty Sehgal, a BJP leader, asked, “The figures seem forged to appease the masses. There cannot be so many families in Punjab which are thriving on less than Rs 5,000 per month. It is a vote game. Politicians do not realise that they are making the people dependent on them. Votes never get translated by freebies. More importantly, if it is a Centre-funded scheme, how can the Punjab CM take the entire credit?”
SAD MLA Pawan Tinu asked, “When our government left, we had covered 35 lakh families. At that time, the Congress leaders were saying that we have exaggerated the figures and the real beneficiaries should be far less. So, they got verification started which is yet to be completed. Rather than doing any deletion, they added 1 lakh more families. So, our stand gets vindicated.”

On figures related to Sehat Bima Yojana, a public relations officer pointed out, “When 36 lakh blue card beneficiaries have been included, 4.94 lakh J-form holding farmer families have been covered, 2.8 lakh small farmers, more than 2.38 lakh registered construction workers, 46,000 small traders and 4,500 journalists have been covered, it is obviously like getting almost the entire Punjab covered.”