PANAJI
The government of Goa has auto renewed approximately 2.5 lakh cards issued under the Deen Dayal Swasthya Seva Yojana (DDSSY) policy, without charging any renewal fees this year, owing to the pandemic situation prevailing in the State.
The free renewal will cost a loss of approximately Rs 7 crore to the State exchequer which used to get collected as charges. The government has renewed all cards issued except blocked cards as that of the government servants who now, do not avail this facility of health insurance/Mediclaim under the DDSSY for the past two years.
“This is the first time that any government issued card is being auto renewed. This has also made Goa the first State in India to initiate free auto renewal of health insurance cards,” stated Balakrishna Pai, Goa government’s consultant for DDSSY. He added further that the decision was taken in favour of the citizens, as this would avoid their ‘in person’ visits to the 18 centres across Goa where they usually stood in queues between the months of July and August every year.
“Also, the charges of Rs 200-300 taken for renewal were waived off too, as this renewal has been done free,” said Pai. Normally the citizens go to 18 centres across Goa between July 1 to August 31 every year, to renew the cards and also pay a charge of Rs 200-300 per card, depending on the size of their family, to avail the cashless insurance scheme. The annual renewal fee for a family of three or less members is Rs 200 and for a family of four and above is Rs 300.
Taking a favourable decision for the general public in Goa, the Pramod Sawant government decided to auto renew the DDSSY cards issued for the period between April 1, 2021 to March 31, 2022. Approximately 2.5 lakh DDSSY cards were issued for the period, which are all auto renewed now.
In 2020, the deadline to renew the DDSSY cards was extended to September 30, due to the pandemic as over 40,000 families had not been able to renew their cards. In view of Covid-19 situation, the Directorate of Health Services (DHS) had provided an online facility for card renewal last year. The renewal was for the next policy period from September 1, 2020 to August 31, 2021.
In April, the Goa government had declared that all the DDSSY cards which were renewed along with the non-renewed cards for the current policy year (September 1, 2020 to August 31, 2021) will be auto renewed and valid up to March 31, 2022 to coincide with the financial year.
Earlier the Goa government had also declared that the DDSSY policy year will coincide with the financial year. Hence all the DDSSY cards were auto renewed and will now be valid up to March 31, 2022 to coincide with the financial year. The Goa government had issued directions to this effect to the Health Department.
The sum assured for the existing renewed cards will remain unchanged till August 31, 2021 however for the non-renewed cards which will be auto renewed the sum assured will be calculated on pro-rata for a period of four months (May 1, 2021 to August 31, 2021) as follows – the sum assured of Rs 2.5 lakh per family will be updated to Rs 84,247 per family and the sum assured of Rs four lakh per year per family will be updated to Rs 1,34,795 per family.
However, for the seven months from September 1, 2021 till March 31, 2022 the sum assured will be calculated on pro-rata as - sum assured of Rs 2.5 lakh per family will be updated to Rs 1,45,205 per family and the sum assured of Rs four lakh per year per family will be updated to Rs 2,32,329 per family. The next policy year will commence from April 1, 2022 till March 31, 2023. “The decision whether to continue the auto renewal process and to waive off the charges, will be taken in April 2022,” said Pai.
