Principal Secretary, Health and Medical Education Department, UT Ladakh, Dr. Pawan Kotwal reviewed the progress on the inclusion of families into the Universal Health Coverage Scheme (Health Insurance) not covered under the Socio-Economic and Caste Census data (SECC-2011) on May 25.

It was stated during the meeting that almost 70 percent of the households in Ladakh have been covered under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY) and the Universal Health Coverage scheme of UT Ladakh. 

The Administration of UT Ladakh introduced the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) Scheme in convergence with Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY) scheme in December 2020 to cover families and individuals through a digital, portable, and cashless health insurance scheme who were not covered under earlier launched PMJAY. 

Hailing it as a very good welfare scheme, Principal Secretary said that a family gets the benefit of Health coverage of ₹ 5 lakh through the usage of the Golden card issued under the PMJAY or UHC scheme. Apart from treatment costs at the hospital, the scheme also covers expenses incurred on diagnostic tests, medicines, pre-hospitalization, post-hospitalization expenses, and covid-19 treatment among others.

Highlighting the importance of the Golden card, the Principal Secretary said, it raises the confidence level of an individual as it gives him/her a sense of financial security. He said it was the administration’s responsibility to ensure that the cards are distributed to all the eligible beneficiaries. 

Deputy Commissioners, Leh, and Kargil were asked to open Aadhar card centers in their respective District hospitals to generate new Aadhar cards and register and link the existing ones with their respective mobile numbers so that the registration of beneficiaries under the PMJAY and UHC Schemes could be done either by using Aadhar data or through the One-Time Password (OTP). He said that newborn babies in the hospitals can also be issued the Golden Health card right at birth. 

The Principal Secretary urged both Deputy Commissioners, Chief Medical Officers, and Block Medical Officers to target the distribution of cards block-wise and Tehsil-wise and complete the task by June 21, 2022. 

To receive a Golden card, the families must have a Ration card and Aadhar card. If their names are not included in the SECC data or if their names are mentioned wrongly in the SECC registration, they should go to their nearest Tehsildar’s office, file an application, and submit their documents for inclusion under the PMJAY and UHC schemes and for correcting their names respectively. 

The meeting was attended by Dr. Iftakhar Chowdhary, Additional Secretary/ Mission Director-NHM, CEO-SHA, Ladakh; Balasaheb Suse, Deputy Commissioner, Leh; Santosh Sukhadeve, Deputy Commissioner, Kargil; Dr. Motup Dorjey, Director Health, Ladakh; Dr. Norzin Angmo, Chief Medical Officer, Leh; Shabbir Hussain, State Programme Manager; Deachen Choskit, State IT Consultant; and Attaullah, Tehsildar, Leh.