After rolling out ambitious social security schemes such as the crop insurance scheme for farmers and expansion of the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana for families living below the poverty line, the government is working on a cashless health insurance scheme for senior citizens, which reports say might be announced in the upcoming budget 2016-17.
Citizens above the age of 60 will get an insurance cover of Rs 50,000 per person. The Finance Ministry will be the administrative authority of the scheme.
Reports say the government might link the bank accounts of beneficiaries to transfer the subsidised amount. The premium for this scheme will be subsidised upto 90 percent for those beneficiaries living below poverty line, through direct cash transfers to their accounts.
Other government-run insurance schemes such as Pradhan Mantri Jeevan offer life cover of Rs 2 lakh (to be renewed every year) for a premium of Rs 330 per annum. There are others such as Atal Pension Yojana is an anniuty scheme for the unorganised sector which provides a fixed minimum pension of Rs 1,000-Rs 5,000.
The scheme will be funded from unclaimed funds with banks, insurance companies and other government schemes such as EPFO, reports say.Around Rs 10,000 crore of such funds are currently lying unutilised with the government.
