Narsana village becomes first in Rajasthan with 100% health insurance cover

JAIPUR: The Narsana village in Jalore district of Rajasthan has become the first gram panchayat in the state to register all families for ₹10 lakh cashless health insurance coverage under “Chiranjeevi Swasthya Bima Yojna”, a state flagship scheme.

The Yojna was started on May 1, 2021 with ₹5 lakh health coverage but later it was increased to ₹10 lakh. Over 12 lakh people have benefited under the scheme, and a sum of ₹1,400 crore has been spent.

Presenting a unique model, the district administration, with the help of donors and the health department, covered all the families of the Narsana gram panchayat under the scheme.

Jalore district collector, Nishant Jain said the gram panchayat has 1,235 families, and all are covered under the Yojna. “There were 428 families, which were not covered automatically under the Yojna as they were not under categories covered free of cost. On being effectively convinced by the sarpanch, block development officer and others, 248 of 428 families paid ₹850 each and got covered,” he said.

Jain said for the remaining 180 families, Sarpanch, Santosh Kanwar and others approached local donor Tej Raj, who paid a premium of ₹1.53 lakh for the remaining families, and with that the entire village got covered.

“Working on the same model, we have identified 20 gram panchayats in 10 blocks and are targeting ‘100% health insurance coverage’ of the families by the month end,” said Jain.

The insurance premium is free for eligible beneficiary families under the Food Security Act (NFSA) of the state registered in the free category, Socio Economic Census (SECC) 2011, contract workers working in all departments/boards/corporations/government companies of the state, small and marginal farmers and pastoralists. The destitute and helpless families receiving the ex-gratia amount for the year Covid-19 are included.