हिंदी
says against publicity stunt of giving medical insurance cover of Rs 10 lakh per year actual medical insurance cover of Sehat Yojana was only Rs 1 lakh.
(N K Sharma also points to total failure of the Mohalla Clinic scheme and condemns govt for playing cruel joke on Pbis by promising to open 18 new medical colleges but doing nothing)
Chandigarh, 22 January 2025
The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) today condemned the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government for misleading Punjabis by claiming it would provide free medical treatment for up to Rs 10 lakh per year to them when it had actually tied up medical insurance for only Rs 1 lakh.
Addressing a press conference here, senior SAD leader N K Sharma said the AAP government did not have any intention of implementing the scheme and was only indulging in a publicity gimmick to befool Punjabis. Asserting that the scheme had already been launched five times, including during the Tarn Taran by-election, Mr Sharma said “crores have been spent to advertise the scheme without giving the benefit of medical treatment to even one patient”.
Stating that this was not the first time the government was misusing funds under the health sector for publicity gimmicks, the SAD leader said “the government had kept Rs 761 crore in its budget for the health sector but did not give the benefit of medical cover to even five persons”. He said the government had also defaulted on paying its share of Rs 200 crore in the Ayushman Bhart scheme due to which the scheme, which was to provide medical treatment to 15 lakh persons, had been affected.
Mr N K Sharma said the fact of the matter was that if the government was sincere about providing medical insurance cover of up to Rs 10 lakh per person in the State it would need to earmark a budget of Rs 10,000 crore. “The government is claiming that it will run the scheme by spending Rs 1200 crore. This is because the medical insurance has been done for only Rs 1 lakh per person under the scheme with the government committing to paying the rest of the claims through the funds of the State Health Mission. This effectively means Punjabis will get a medical insurance cover of Rs 1 lakh only”, he added.
Asserting that the government was going to use the scheme to collect data for use during the forthcoming assembly elections, Mr Sharma said “12,000 existing youth clubs have been disbanded. The government wants to create new Clubs of its workers with the aim of running the scheme through them as was disclosed during its launch today”.
Mr Sharma also spoke on how all announcements made with regard to the health sector by the AAP government had come to naught. He said the Mohalla Clinics, which were announced with much fanfare after repainting Suvida Kendras established by the erstwhile SAD government, were facing an acute shortage of doctors. “320 doctors who were selected one year back have not been appointed till now and the government has attained the dubious distinction of offering private doctors Rs 100 per patient to see patients at its Mohalla Clinics”.
The Akali leader also asserted that AAP had played a cruel joke on Punjabis by promising to open 18 new Medical Colleges and had done nothing on this front. He said even the buildings of two proposed colleges at Kapurthala and Hoshiarpur, which were ready since quite some time, could not be opened till now. He said AAP leaders had claimed at the function held today to announce the medical treatment scheme that former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal had done nothing. “I want to make it clear that Mr Parkash Singh Badal brought in the Tata Memorial hospital to Mohali and the AIIMS to Bathinda, established a satellite centre of the PGI at Sangrur besides eight Nursing colleges and 1933 free dispensaries in the health sector alone”. EOM
Meanwhile reacting to a comment by AAP leader Satyendra Jain that the Kejriwal Sehat Yojana scheme was being inaugurated today and not the Mukh Mantri Sehat Yojana which was its official name, Dr Daljit Singh Cheema said “this assertion is an insult to chief minister Bhagwant Mann”. He said people knew that excise policy and the land pooling policy besides the Sehat Yojana had been prepared in Delhi, but how AAP had admitted this officially which was akin to sprinkling salt on the wounds of Punjabis. EOM
