The Rajasthan government distributed 100,000 smart cards to villagers in the state last week. The smart card comes with a cash incentive of Rs 1,500 and a bank account. The state plans several more such initiatives through the smart cards in the future.
The scheme, called Bhamasha, aims to improve financial inclusion in the state. It is being implemented with the help of IL&FS and Basix, and will cost the state Rs 750 crore. All told, Rajasthan plans to issue 5 million such cards.
These might be very noble intentions on the part of the state, but these smart cards have created a new set of problems. Thanks to these cards, Rajasthan has been excluded from the National Health Insurance
Scheme of the central government, which seeks to issue smart cards to poor households for health insurance of up to Rs 30,000.
Eight districts of Rajasthan, which were to begin distribution of the smart cards under the national scheme, have been told to leave the scheme, while about 100,000 cards distributed in four districts of the state have become redundant.
According to the Union labour ministry officials, the smart cards issued by the Rajasthan government are not equipped with the special software which enables the card to be used in any state.
The officials said that the state has been insisting that its own cards be used and that is not acceptable. “It has unilaterally stopped distribution of our smart cards,” an official in the ministry said.
For the moment, there is still hope for the poor of Rajasthan. Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje had earlier said that the state card would also have a package of Rs 30,000 worth of health insurance. With the withdrawal of the scheme from the state, state government sources said this insurance cover will now kick in.
What the event unmasks is the chaos smart cards are creating in the countryside as well as the corridors of power. The confusion has hit the Centre’s ambitious National Health Insurance Scheme. About 16 states have already started issuing these cards which can be used in all states in select private hospitals participating in the scheme. If any state launches its own smart card, it risks being excluded from this scheme.
Explaining the qualities of the National Health Insurance Scheme cards, Director General Labour Welfare Anil Swarup said: “We designed the card keeping in mind four aspects of the beneficiaries: He is poor, illiterate, jobless and a migrant. We did not design it just for one state, but for all.” In other words, there is little chance of any state card to talk to the national card.
Swarup said this card was the first ever attempt to achieve national standardisation and was done with the help of the National Informatics Centre.
“For the scheme to work, the data have to be in a particular format. Without that it is useless,” he said, without commenting on why Rajasthan government has refused to use the national cards.
