Jammu: Five months after they registered for the Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (ABPM-JAY), most of the 65,000 Kashmiri Pandit applicants have not received their health cards yet, which they have blamed on the “offline registration process”.
The scheme was launched in Jammu and Kashmir by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on December 26. The Sehat scheme in convergence with PM-JAY aims to provide universal health insurance coverage of Rs 5 lakh per family.
The ABPM-JAY Sehat, which covers all residents of Jammu and Kashmir including employees and pensioners of the UT administration and their families, has the same benefits as available under PM-JAY.
The scheme covers up to three days of pre-hospitalisation and 15 days post-hospitalisation expenses, such as diagnostics and medicines, of a beneficiary patient.
“We registered through an offline method at a CSC (Common Service Centre) set up by the government in October last year. We paid money too as registration charges. But we are still to get golden cards. We are told that registration is not valid,” alleged Vikas Raina, whose mother is undergoing treatment here for cancer.
Vikas, who is one of the 65,000 community members who registered for the scheme through offline method, said, “My mother Santosh could not benefit from the Ayushman Bharat PM health cover scheme. It’s a gift given by our Prime Minister Narendra Modi. But the LG administration has denied her that right.”
Officials said that the Jammu and Kashmir administration has issued the Sehat golden cards to 22 lakh beneficiaries since the launch of the scheme in the union territory, and 22,000 patients have got free medical treatment so far. But , according to KPs, this does not include most of the 65,000 of them who applied through the offline mode.
All Party Migrant Coordination Committee (APMCC) chairman Vinood Pandits lashed out at the administration for “fooling” the displaced people and for wrongly undertaking offline registration process by CSC e-governance organisation.
“As many as 65,000 Kashmiri migrant Pandits have registered through this process. Why have CSC e-governance organisations done wrong registration and also got over Rs 60 lakh under registration process? Why is the government penalising KPs for the wrongs of the administration?” Pandita asked.
Former general secretary, All State Kashmiri Pandit Conference, Dr T K Bhat, said Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha should intervene so that the community members could avail the free health benefits.
As per the officials of the Relief and Rehabilitation department of J&K government, as many as 65000 individuals of community out of the 1,53,000 people have been registered for Ayushman Bharat scheme.
“After registration of the 65000 individuals for the scheme, (golden) cards could not be generated due to the reason that registration was done through ‘offline mode’ without ascertaining whether they existed in the census 2011,” a senior official of the department said.
The officials blamed the CSC e-governance organisation for its failure to provide staff with biometrics setup despite clear directives to them on February 08.
