Bhubaneswar: The state government has taken several steps to make Biju Swasthya Kalyan Yojana (BSKY) a more attractive proposition, including raising the income limit for treatment of certain ailments and also making it available to people of Odisha living in other states.
Making the announcement Saturday, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik expressed happiness at BSKY achieving “great success” benefitting over 1.1 crore patients with cashless care since its implementation August 15.
The annual income limit for treatment of cancer, heart and kidney aliments under BSKY has been raised from Rs 1 lakh per annum to Rs 3 lakh per annum in order to benefit more families.
To provide healthcare to people of Odisha even outside the state, the government has decided that all state and central government hospitals outside the state are deemed to be empanelled under BSKY and the treatment cost will be paid to the beneficiary bank accounts, a statement said.
Further, all premier healthcare institutions across the country, including Tata Memorial Hospital Mumbai, CMC HElath Vellore, Narayana Hrudalaya etc have also been covered under BSKY.
To enable wide coverage of aliments, the state government has decided to include 4,036 medical packages under the BSKY, against only 1,343 packages under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY).
Package rates have also been revised upward so as to attract more hospitals to be covered under this scheme.
To further facilitate patients, in case of referral to a hospital outside the state, a conveyance charge at the rate of Rs 2,000 per patient will be transferred to beneficiary account, the release added.
The additions and changes to the BSKY come amidst charges by the BJP that the state government was depriving the people of the state of the benefits of PMJAY. The state government, however, has held that BSKY is a better scheme and benefits more people than PMJAY would have.
PNN