Andhra CM launches 'YSR Bima' scheme, allocates Rs 750 crore for 2021-22

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy on Thursday launched the 'YSR Bima' scheme with new guidelines, where the government itself will directly pay the insurance amount to the family of deceased to make the insurance claims easier.

In order to support 1.32 lakh families through the YSR Bima scheme, the State government allocated Rs 750 crores for the year 2021-22. In the last two years, the State government had spent Rs 1307 crore for YSR Bima.

Speaking on the occasion, the Chief Minister said that the government has prioritised public health care, thus soon after forming the government, the annual income for "Aarogyasri" has been pegged at Rs 5 lakh and increased the number of treatments to 2450. "Similarly, as promised during elections, the government had brought YSR Bima, an insurance scheme to support those families who lost their breadwinner. About 1.30 lakh families have been brought under insurance coverage. Under the scheme, an insurance amount of Rs 1 lakh will be paid if the beneficiary aged between 18 to 50 years, who is a breadwinner of the family, succumbs to natural death. A sum of Rs 5 lakh will be paid if the beneficiary in the age group of 18 to 70 years dies in an accident", said the Chief Minister.

The Chief Minister explained that the Union Government had withdrawn from the insurance scheme from April 2020, which was earlier paying 50 per cent of premium. After the Centre's withdrawal, the entire premium was paid by the State on humanitarian grounds to provide security for those families in need. However, the Centre has put more clauses, closing the existing group insurance system and making a mandatory bank account for every person in the family. The Centre had put another clause of a 45-day lien period from the day of account opening, where if someone dies within 45 days, the insurance will not be paid.

He said that the State government had brought 1.2 crore families under the insurance coverage and paid a premium to the banks. However, only 62.5 lakh accounts were opened and the remaining accounts were not opened by the banks though the state government has credited the insurance premium. Banks are required to follow up with individual insurance claims with insurance companies to process the registration and banks are unable to perform these follow-up activities. With this there was a severe delay in the receipt of claims, where also after enrollment, with the 45 day lien period, no claims were given to those 12,039 families who died in the meantime. In that scenario, on humanitarian grounds, the State government came forward and paid for all those 12,039 claims at a cost of Rs 254 crore.

The Chief Minister said that after witnessing all the chaos, the government took the entire responsibility of the scheme and shall clear the claims within one month of receiving the application. In regard to this, he said that the responsibility for the screening of insurance applications has been given to village/ward secretariats monitored by the Joint Collectors.

( With inputs from ANI )

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