MP for compulsory health insurance for BPL

New Delhi, Jul 20: Senior Congress Leader K S Rao, MP, today urged the Centre to introduce a compulsory health insurance scheme to cover the members of the Below Poverty Line (BPL) families.

Talking to newspersons after his week-long tour of China as part of a Parliamentary delegation, he said he was given to understand that the Centre was seriously contemplating a proposal to give health care to BPL families so that they could avail of the facility from any recognised hospital of their choice up to a limit of Rs 25,000 a year.

He said the government should also consider a scheme aimed at universalisation of health insurance so that the entire population was covered. "But the poor families should be given subsidy," he said.

While welcoming the government decision incresing the allocations to provide housing to BPL, he said the unit cost of such houses should be increased to Rs 80,000.

He said his China visit had led him to the conviction that India should also introduce a system of education which provides "skills" to the citizens to make them self-confident of getting an employment or to get them self employed right from the age of 18 years.

"Countries like China, Germany, Japan, South Korea and Malaysia had prospered mainly because of their skills," he said.

He said China, which lagged behind India in the 1970,s had become the fourth richest nation in the world. "This must be an eye opener to us. It is time for us to provide skills and basic needs to the people, motivate them to convert the raw materials into useful assets." Mr Rao urged the government to use the Self-Help Groups (SHGs) in the procurement of foodgrains from the farmers and process them by creating facilities in their respective areas. "The foodstuff so processed should be supplied directly to the PDS shops located in their areas so that a lot of cost involved in transporation could be minimised."

UNI