AYUSHMAN BHARAT – NATIONAL HEALTH PROTECTION MISSION

Introduction:

• Ayushman Bharat- National Health Protection Mission was first introduced in the Union Budget 2018-19.
• In the Union Budget 2018-19, the Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs, Mr Arun Jaitley announced the Ayushman Bharat programme for a new India–2022.
• The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi has recently approved the launch of Ayushman Bharat- National Health Protection Mission (AB-NHPM).
• AB-NHPM will be a centrally sponsored scheme having a benefit cover of Rs 5 lakh per family per year.
• AB-NHPM will entail the already existing/sponsored health schemes- RSBY (Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana) and SCHIS (Senior Citizen Health Insurance Scheme).

 

Target beneficiaries:

• This programme will target around 10.74 crore poor and vulnerable families based on SECC (Socio-Economic Caste Census) database. Since the scheme is dynamic in nature, it would be able to incorporate any future changes in the SECC data.
• This scheme will be rolled out across all states/UT and all districts in order to cover all the targeted beneficiaries.
• The entitlement for this scheme would be based on the deprivation criteria mentioned in the SECC database.

he various categories in rural areas include-
a) Families having only one room.
b) Families having no adult member aged between 16-59.
c) Households having female heads of the family with no adult male member aged between 16-59.
d) Families having any disabled member and no physically abled adult member.
e) SC/ST households.
f) Landless households deriving their income from manual labour.

• 11 defined occupational categories (for urban areas) are entitled under this scheme.

Salient Features of the Programme:

• It will cover almost all secondary care (which involves hospitalisation for non-critical ailments) as well as tertiary care procedures (which involves treatment of critical ailments).
• In order to ensure that nobody is left out, the scheme will have no cap on the size of the family and no age factor.
• Pre and post hospitalisation expenses would be included in the benefits cover provided under this scheme.
• All pre-existing conditions of the people will be covered from day one of the implementations of the policy.
• A defined transport allowance per hospitalisation will also be paid to the beneficiary under this scheme.
• The benefits of the scheme are portable all over India. Therefore a beneficiary covered under this scheme can take benefits from any public/private empanelled hospitals across the country.
• In order to control costs, the payments for the treatment will be done on package rate (which would be defined by the Government in advance).
• All the costs associated with the treatment will be included in these package rates. It will basically be a cashless, paperless transaction for all the beneficiaries.
• This transaction would be facilitated in partnership with NITI Aayog and an IT platform would be made operational to entail this. This would be further backed by a well-defined Grievance Redressal Mechanism.
• As far as the state requirements are considered, states/UTs will have the flexibility to modify these package rates within a limited bandwidth.
• The Central and State Government will share the expenditure incurred in premium payment. This expenditure will be shared in a specified ratio (60:40) as per the guidelines of the Ministry of Finance.
• In order to implement this scheme, the states are required to have a State Health Agency (SHA). A similar structure is required at the district level as well.
• The timely transfer of funds from the Central Government is required to ensure that the funds reach the State health Agency on time. This can be done through an escrow account directly.

What was the need?

• According to a report by NSSO 2015 (National Sample Survey Office) during the last ten years, it was observed that the in-patient hospitalization expenditure has increased about 300% i.e. the average medical expenditure for the treatment (in private hospitals) was about four times than that of the public hospitals.
• Moreover, around 80% of the expenditure in India is met by out of pocket.
• Around 68% people in rural households depend on their income/savings whereas 25% depend on borrowings for any kind of expenditure on hospitalisations.
• In urban households, 75% of people depend on their income/savings whereas 18% depend on borrowings.
• This showed that the out of pocket expenditure was over 60% thus leading to 6 million families getting poorer due to the health conditions.

Benefits of AB-NHPM:

• It will have a major impact on reducing the out of pocket (OOP) expense in order to prevent people going beyond the poverty line.
• This scheme would cover the poor and vulnerable population of India (which is nearly 40% of the total population). This would help in catering to their unmet needs which are ignored due to a lack of financial resources.
• All the secondary and tertiary care will be covered under this programme.
• It will provide a coverage of Rs 5 lakh for each family.
• This is an effective way to increase the access to quality health services.
• AB-NHPM will lead to a timely treatment of the beneficiaries thus leading to an improvement in the quality of life.

DEENDAYAL ANTYODAYA YOJANA: NRLM

Introduction:

• National Rural Livelihoods Mission is a poverty alleviation program launched in 2011 to promote self-employment and organization of rural poor. The core principle in the scheme is to organize the poor into self-help groups and make them capable of self-employment.
• The programme aims at mobilising all rural poor women into self-managed community institutions such as self-help groups, village organisations, cluster level federations, producer groups/companies, in a phased manner.
• In November 2015, the program was renamed Deendayal Antayodaya Yojana (DAY-NRLM).

 

Background of the program:

• The Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY) was launched by the Ministry of Rural Development in the year 1999. The SGSY aimed at providing sustainable income to rural BPL households through income generating assets/economic activities in order to bring them out of poverty.
• To examine various aspects of the scheme implementation, Ministry of Rural Development constituted a Committee on Credit Related Issues under SGSY (under the Chairmanship of Prof. Radhakrishna). The Committee recommended adoption of a ‘Livelihoods Approach’ to rural poverty elimination.

The approach encompassed the following four inter-related tasks:

• Mobilizing poor households into functionally effective SHGs and their federations.
• Enhancing access to bank credit and financial, technical and marketing services.
• Building capacities and skills for gainful and sustainable livelihoods development.
• Converging various schemes for efficient delivery of social and economic support services to poor households.
• The government accepted the recommendation of the Committee and restructured SGSY into National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM) in FY 2010-11 to provide a sharper and greater focus as well as momentum for poverty reduction.

DAY-NRLM:

• The scheme is focused on promoting self-employment and organization of rural poor.
• The Mission aims at creating efficient and effective institutional platforms of the rural poor, enabling them to increase household income through sustainable livelihood enhancements and improved access to financial service.

Main features of the scheme:

• The scheme was launched through investment support by the World Bank.
• The programme has a special focus on women empowerment including a dedicated component for promoting farm and non-farm based livelihoods for women farmers in rural areas.
• The program organizes one woman member from each household into affinity based women SHGs and federations at village level and at higher levels.
• NRLM supports the financial inclusion of the SHG members from rural poor households through bank linkage and also works with the Banking sector to ensure credit flow to the SHGs.
• The financial support under the programme is mainly in the form of Revolving Fund and Community Investment Funds, given as grants to the Self Help Groups (SHGs) and their federations.
• The Government is implementing DAY-NRLM across the country in all States and Union Territories (except Delhi and Chandigarh).

Target:

• NRLM set a target to cover 7 Crore rural poor households through self-managed Self Help Groups (SHGs) and federated institutions and support them for livelihoods collectives in a period of 8-10 years.
• DAY-NRLM ensures adequate coverage of vulnerable sections of the society such that 50 percent of the beneficiaries are members of the SCs & STs, 15 percent from minority groups and 3 percent from persons with disability, while keeping in view the overall target of 100 percent coverage of the rural poor households identified through Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) and through participatory processes of identification of poor households and approved by Gram Sabha.

Mission mode approach: 

NRLM implementation is in a Mission Mode. This enables:

• Shift from the present allocation based strategy to a demand-driven strategy enabling the states to formulate their own livelihoods-based poverty reduction action plans,
• Focus on targets, outcomes and time bound delivery,
• The continuous capacity building, imparting requisite skills and creating linkages with livelihoods opportunities for the poor, including those emerging in the organized sector, and
• Monitoring against targets of poverty outcomes.

As NRLM follows a demand-driven strategy, the States have the flexibility to develop their livelihoods-based perspective plans and annual action plans for poverty reduction. The overall plans would be within the allocation for the state based on inter-se poverty ratios.

Sub schemes under DAY-NLM:

Some of the schemes launched under DAY-NLM are:

• Aajeevika Grameen Express Yojana.
• Start-up Village Entrepreneurship Programme.
• Deen Dayal Upadhyay –Grameen Kaushalya Yojana.
• Mahila Kisan Sahshaktikaran Pariyojana.

Aajeevika Grameen Express Yojana:

• Aajeevika Grameen Express Yojana (AGEY)” is a sub scheme under Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana – National Rural Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NRLM).
• The scheme was launched by Ministry of Rural Development.
• The sub-scheme was implemented in 250 blocks in the country on a pilot basis for a period of 3 years from 2017-18 to 2019-20.

The main objectives of AGEY are:

• To provide an alternative source of livelihoods to members of SHGs under DAY-NRLM by facilitating them to operate public transport services in backward rural areas, as identified by the states;
• To provide safe, affordable and community monitored rural transport services to connect remote villages with key services and amenities (including access to markets, education and health) for the overall economic development of the area by making use of the supports available within the framework of DAY-NRLM.

Start-up Village Entrepreneurship Program:

The Start-up Village Entrepreneurship Programme (SVEP) is being implemented as a sub-scheme under National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) to promote start-up enterprises in rural areas.The SVEP proposes to address following three major problems of rural start-ups:

1.    A missing knowledge eco-system.

2.    A missing incubation eco-system.

3.    A missing financial eco-system.

• SVEP will hence be a focused intervention to promote start-up entrepreneurship at village level by rural poor households by providing assured availability of need based financial support, capacity building and advisory services for establishment of village enterprises.
• SVEP envisages the creation of sustainable self-employment opportunities for a large number of rural poor youth, enabling them to engage effectively with the market and help generate wealth locally. In the process, SVEP will bring banks and financial institutions closer to the village entrepreneur.

Deen Dayal Upadhyay –Grameen Kaushalya Yojana (DDU-GKY):

• A major component under DAY-NRLM relates to skilling of rural poor youth for self-employment and wage employment. Towards this end the Ministry is implementing the Deen Dayal Upadhyay –Grameen Kaushalya Yojana (DDU-GKY) under DAY-NRLM.
• DDU-GKY is a placement Linked Skill Development scheme which seeks to build the Skills of the poor rural youth and place them in relatively higher wage employment sectors of the economy.
• DAY-NRLM also provides support for establishing Rural Self Employment Training Institutes(RSETIs) in each district of the country in collaboration with the Banks and the State Governments to provide training to the rural youth from the poor households to take-up economic activities.

Mahila Kisan Sahshaktikaran Pariyojana:

Mahila Kisan Sahshaktikaran Pariyojana (MKSP), is a sub scheme under DAY-NRLM. The Scheme is also implemented by Ministry of Rural devlopment.The aim of the scheme is to promote agriculture based livelihoods of rural women by strengthening community institutions of poor women farmers to promote sustainable agriculture. MKSP focuses on agriculture, non-timber forest produce and livestock interventions.

It provides three kind of services to the farmers, namely:

• Extension services.
• Training capacity building and handholding services.
• Facilitation for convergence with other line department to access the benefit from other schemes/ programmes.

SARAS Aajeevika Mela:

• In addition, the Ministry has been organizing SARAS fairs at Delhi as a part of India International Trade Fair (IITF) and also as ShishirMela in DilliHaat.
• The SARAS AajeevikaMela 2018 in New Delhi is an endeavour of DAY-NRLM to provide to the rural women producers a national platform and an opportunity to showcase their products, and seek buyers, either individuals or bulk buyers for sale nationally / internationally.

AP YUVA SADHIKARIKA NIRUDYOGA BHRUTHI SCHEME

Key information:

• Launched on: 12th December 2017 
• Launched at: Andhra Pradesh 
• Launched by: The state government of Andhra Pradesh 
• Inaugurated by: Sports Authority of Andhra Pradesh (SAAP) Managing Director N. Bangaru Raju 
• Type of benefit: Allowance of Rs 1500 per month 
• Beneficiary: Almost 10 lakh unemployed youth of Andhra Pradesh 
• Age limit of Applicant: Between the age group of 18-35 years 
• Website: youthservices.ap.gov.in 
• Objective: To provide financial assistance to the unemployed people in the state in the mode of monthly pension. 

 

Introduction:

• The state government of Andhra Pradesh has launched a new scheme named Andhra Pradesh Yuva Sadhikarika Nirudyoga Bhruthi Scheme on 12th Dec 2017 in Andhra Pradesh. 
• Mr N Bangaru, the managing director of the Sports Authority of Andhra Pradesh has declared that this scheme will be going to benefit nearly unemployed youths in the state. 
• Under this AP Yuva Sadhikarika Nirudyoga Bhruthi Scheme, the state government will benefit almost 10 lakh educated but still an unemployed youth of the state. 
• The main aim of the Andhra Pradesh state government behind launching this scheme is to grant financial aid to the qualified jobless youth in the form of monthly allowance. 
• For this, the Andhra Pradesh state government will accumulate age wise data of unemployed youth for the successful implementation of this scheme. 
• The state government has also announced draft guidelines for the Yuva Sadhikarika Nirudyoga Bhruthi Scheme at youthservices.ap.gov.in and on Andhra Pradesh Youth Services Facebook page and expecting recommendations and responses from the people. 
• All the ideas will be reviewed at a high level and then taken into the plan for the scheme. 
• The last date for the submission of suggestions is 30th December 2017. 

Features:

• The scheme will aim to give financial help to the eligible jobless youth of the state to help them survive. As said above, this scheme will be a kind-of pension scheme for the unemployed youth. 
• The allowance amount of Rs. 1500/- will be paid to the jobless youth until they get a job and star to earn. The recipients have to fulfil the qualification criteria to avail the advantages. 
• Students who have passed 12th standard will get Rs. 1000 per month as stipend. 
• Those who have completed graduation will receive Rs. 1500 per month as stipend. 
• The post-graduation students will get Rs. 2000 per month as stipend. 
• This scheme will also be giving skill development training on the job training and other knowledge related training to the youth. The Managing Director of Sports Authority has declared that spoken English training and self-employment opportunities will be given to the recipients to make them industry ready. 

Eligibility criteria:

• It is an Andhra Pradesh state level scheme, announced by the state sports authority. So the recipients must have the domicile of the state of Andhra Pradesh. 
• The scheme is for the students who have cleared their higher secondary examination from a recognised board or equivalent will be qualified for the scheme. 
• The eligible age limit for the scheme is of between 18 - 35 years maximum. 
• As per the rule, only one unemployed person per family will be fit for the scheme. 

Implementation process

• To implement the scheme the state authority will make a new database. Under it, all the age-wise data of the qualified beneficiaries will be collected. 
• The registered applicants will be required to serve voluntary services to many sectors in the state. The state authority has declared that applicants can join in any welfare or development projects on a voluntary basis to collect hands-on experience in the particular field. 
• The residents and the general people of Andhra Pradesh state can send recommendations to the state authority through their official website Click Here