Swasthya Bima Yojana to cover all Haryana districts

Chandigarh, Oct 31 (UNI) Haryana has received the Centre's approval for implementing the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana scheme in the remaining twelve districts of the state to provide health services to about 6.98 lakh families living below the poverty line from December one.

Stating this here today, an official spokesman said the scheme had already been implemented in the eight districts of the state--Faridabad, including Palwal which was recently declared a district, Yamunanagar, Panipat, Bhiwani, Ambala, Hisar, Rohtak and Mewat.

A total number of over 5.99 lakh BPL families of these districts were already covered under the scheme.

The scheme would now be implemented in Panchkula, Bhiwani Rewari, Jhajjar, Gurgaon, Sirsa, Faridabad, Jind, Sonepat, Kurukshetra, Fatehabad and Karnal.

He said the scheme was earlier scheduled to be implemented in the whole state in a phased manner by 2012.

However, Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda took up the case with Central government for implementing the scheme in the remaining twelve districts of Haryana state in this year itself, so that all the BPL families could avail this benefit.

With the approval of the Central government for implementing the scheme in all the districts of the state, Haryana had now become a leading state in the country for implementing Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana as a total number of 12.97 lakh families living below poverty line would be able to avail the benefits under this scheme in a year.

UNI MA RL AS1943