Free Med Insurance planned for 30 crore BPL people

Jalandhar, Dec 6 (UNI) The Central government was contemplating free medical insurance scheme for 30 crore people living Below Ppoverty Line (BPL) and provision of medicine banks for poor in its new pharmaceutical policy, Union Chemicals Minister Ram Vilas Paswan today said.

He told reporters here that his ministry had received the report from the committee constituted by the government for submitting recommendations for the new policy and would forward its proposal to the Union Cabinet for consideration by the month end.

Mr Paswan said that as per the government's estimates, Rs 3,000 crore per annum would be required to extend medical insurance cover to 30 crore poor people of the country to enable them to get reimbursement of treatment expenses up to Rs 35,000 per annum.

Besides, the government also proposed setting up of medicine banks in districts for providing free medicine to BPL category people. The Centre, the state government concerned and the drug manufacturers are expected to contribute equally (one third each) for the above scheme.

Besides this, the government had also made allocation of Rs 200 crore for cancer assistance fund which had provision of funding full treatment expenses for BPL people and 50 per cent treatment cost to people living above the poverty line.

Mr Paswan said that the UPA government at the Centre had already taken a number of steps to bring reforms in price structure of medicines which had already brought down prices of 846 medicines from one to 74 per cent.

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