The Tamil Nadu government has selected city-based Star Health and Allied Insurance Company to offer health insurance cover for people living below the poverty line (BPL) in the state.
According to government sources, the health insurance scheme, which is named as ‘Chief Minister Kalaignar’s Insurance Scheme for Life Saving Treatments’, is likely to be launched on July 23 by Union minister for health and family welfare Ghulam Nabi Azad.
State health minister MRK Panneerselvam said Rs 517.30 crore had been allocated towards premium for the insurance scheme to cover 10 million BPL people. Through the scheme, the BPL people will get access to specialist treatment up to Rs 1 lakh for 51 life-threatening diseases.
When contacted, Star Health chairman and managing director V Jagannathan confirmed that the company had bagged the contract, while declining to give more information.
Jagannathan, however, told Business Standard that the company had bagged contracts from the Haryana and Andhra Pradesh governments to offer health cover for BPL people and was getting premium income of over Rs 360 crore. The company had set a target of Rs 650 crore business by March 2010, he said.
“Health insurance, which used to be a luxury earlier, has become a comfort now. It will become a necessity, especially at this juncture of economic slowdown,” he added.
In Haryana, the company’s scheme provides smartcard-based cashless health insurance cover up to Rs 30,000 to all BPL families for five years. The insurer gets Rs 15 crore as premium income from this scheme. In Andhra Pradesh, the scheme is targeted at BPL families and the company has so far insured 65 million people in the state, Jagannathan said.
