The Odisha government has extended the Biju Swasthya Kalyan Yojana (BSKY) health scheme to children aged between 5 and 18 years. This includes children whose names are not in the list but their parents are enrolled in the scheme. The Health and Family Welfare department has informed all BSKY empanelled hospitals about this through a letter.
The letter states that some child members of families covered under the National Food Security Act (NFSA)/State Food Security Scheme (SFSS) are left out of the database. This is because there are no vacant slots in that block for adding new members to the database. As a result, these children cannot be registered and authenticated for cashless treatment under BSKY.
To address this issue, the government has approved BSKY benefits for child members of NFSA/SFSS families aged 5 to 18 years. Parents need to provide documentary evidence to support their claim that the individual being treated is their child.
Children below 5 years of age are already covered under BSKY based on self-declaration by the card holder.
The BSKY scheme was launched by the State government on August 15, 2018. It aims to provide universal health coverage with a focus on economically vulnerable families.
Currently, about 96.5 lakh families out of the State’s 1.11 crore families are covered under BSKY in Odisha.
