Liaison Officers to be positioned in 10 major cities
Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Nov 14: The State Administrative Council (SAC) which met here today under the chairmanship of Governor Satya Pal Malik approved the launch of Ayushman Bharat – Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana in the State with effect from December 1, 2018.
The scheme will provide health insurance coverage to about 6.13 lakh families figuring in Socio-Economic Caste Census database to the tune of Rs 5 lakh per family per year with secondary and tertiary care hospitalization. There will be no cap on family size and all families included in the Socio-Economic and Caste Census will be entitled to claim the benefits. The scheme offers treatment in any of the 13,000 empanelled hospitals in the country under 1350 medical packages.
Institutional mechanism has already been put in place with the constitution of State Health Agency, District Implementation Units and Grievance Redressal mechanism.
Around 136 public and private hospitals have been empanelled in the State. 140 Arogya Mitras have been identified and they have undergone orientation and training programme. Intensive IEC activities like door-to-door campaign, newspaper advertisements have been started. IEC activities will be intensified in the coming days.
Golden Cards to all the eligible families are targeted to be issued by December 15, 2018. The Golden Cards are being given through empanelled hospitals (free of cost) and through Common Service Centres (CSCs) at a cost of Rs 30. In order to incentivize the beneficiaries, Government has decided to chip in with 50% cost and the beneficiary has to now pay Rs 15 only instead of Rs 30 to the CSCs for registration. Rs 15 on behalf of the beneficiary will be paid by the Government.
The SAC also approved positioning of designated Liaison Officers of State Government in the cities of New Delhi, Noida/Meerut, Chandigarh, Aligarh, Bhopal, Pune, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai and Jaipur to coordinate with students of the State pursuing higher education in other parts of the country, whenever they are faced with the situations or incidents related to their regional identity.
Around 20,000 students of the State are pursuing higher studies in various colleges in other states. This year around 3820 students got admission to various undergraduate courses. Since 2012, J&K students have also availed opportunities to obtain admission in outside state colleges to undergraduate course under the Prime Ministers Special Scholarship Scheme (PMSSS).
The Liaison Officers positioned in these major cities will report directly to the Resident Commissioner, J&K at New Delhi and coordinate with him and the State Government regarding issues faced by students of J&K. The Higher Education Department will be overall coordinating Department in the State Government.
Each location will have a ‘Help Center’, a temporary office with basic facilities including telephone/internet. The details about the ‘Help Centers’ will be widely published. Student’s wherever necessary would also be engaged as Assistant Liaison Officers, on a stipend/honorarium.
Positioning Liaison Officers in major cities where concentration of J&K Students is higher will give the students greater sense of safety and security as they can easily contact the Liaison Officer in case of any apprehensions or trouble. This would also remove apprehensions among the intending students who wish to study in outside state colleges and encourage them to move out of state for higher studies and better pursuits.
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