New Delhi:
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday reviewed the progress made under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Package (PMGKP) insurance scheme for health workers fighting Covid-19 and asked insurers to accelerate the disbursement of pending claims under the Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana (PMJJBY).
During a virtual meeting with the heads of insurance companies and senior officials of ministry of finance including Debasish Panda, secretary, Department of Financial Services(DFS), MR Kumar, chairman,Life Insurance Corporation,Atul Sahay, CMD, New India Assurance and RM Vishakha,MD &CEO, India First, officials of SBI Life,she stressed on the importance of streamlining the process and documentation requirements under the schemes so that the claims are disbursed speedily, an official statement said.
The finance minister observed that under the PMGKP scheme, a total of 419 claims have been paid by as on date, amounting to Rs 209.5 crore disbursed in the account of their nominees.
She also appreciated the efforts of New India Assurance which has been entrusted to manage the scheme and cited the example of Ladakh where a claim was settled within four hours of receiving the district magistrate certificate and urged to maintain a similar approach in future.
NIA has received Rs 350 crore as premiums to cover 22.12 healrh workers in the PMGKP scheme, twice extended since it was launched on March 30 , 2020, providing Rs 50 lakh of as claims in case of dealth of insureds.
The finance minister also directed the states to take up COVID claims of health workers on priority and make maximum use of this simplified mechanism that has been put in place.
To address the issue of delays arising out of states sending documents, Sitharaman said that a new system has been put in place whereby a simple certificate from the District Magistrate and endorsed by the nodal state health authority will be sufficient to process these claims.
She also called for accelerating disbursement of pending claims under PMJJBY during the pandemic.
A total of 4.65 lakh claims have been paid amounting to Rs 9,307 crore under PMJJBY. Since the beginning of the pandemic that is April 2020 onwards till date, 1.2 lakh claims have been paid amounting to Rs 2,403 crore, at a disposal rate of 99 per cent.
Sitharaman also took stock of Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana (PMSBY), under which a total of 82,660 claims for Rs 1,629 crore have been paid as on May 31, 2021.
PMJJBY and PMSBY were launched in 2015 to provide life and accidental insurance covers, respectively, of Rs 2 lakh each to all beneficiaries enrolled under the schemes through their banks with annual premium of only Rs 330 and Rs 12, respectively. The objective of the schemes is to ensure that people working in unorganised segment get financial security at a premium of less than Rs 1 per day.
Through, the Government’s financial inclusion program, while over 42 crore bank-accounts have been opened under Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY), cumulative enrolments under PMJJBY and PMSBY are 10 crore and 23 crore respectively. Through Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-mobile linking, the beneficiaries of different Government schemes are receiving the government support directly in their bank-accounts.
PMGKP Insurance Scheme for Health Workers Fighting COVID-19’ was launched on 30th March, 2020 initially for a period of 90 days to provide comprehensive personal accident cover of Rs. 50 lakh to all healthcare providers, including community health workers and private health workers drafted by the government for the care of Covid-19 patients and for those who may have come in direct contact of COVID-19 patients and were at risk of being impacted by it.
The insurance policy has been extended twice so far.
Since,states and other stakeholders had been raising the matter that the processing of the insurance claims was getting delayed. In order to cut down on these delays and to further streamline and simplify the processing of the insurance claims, central government had decided to start a new system for approval of claims as per which the due diligence will be done by State Governments at the level of district collector.
The district collector in each case will be certifying that the claim is in accordance with SoP of the Scheme. On the basis of this certificate of the collector, NIA will approve and settle the claims within a period of 48 hours.
Further, for the sake of uniformity and prompt disposal, the district collector will also do due diligence and certify the claims even in case of Central Government hospitals/ AIIMS/ Railways etc.