Eleventh Five Year Plan

154 Eleventh Five Year Planprocedure for claiming reimbursements have posedserious challenges in the administration. A transparentscheme that lists the entitlements, administeredthrough a smart card obviating the need for out-ofpocketexpenses is expected to streamline the administration,ensuring the benefits. With these objectivesin view, the government has introduced the RashtriyaSwasthya Bima Yojana to cover all BPL unorganizedsector workers and their families (of five members),whose identity will be verified by the implementingagency and be issued a smart card. The cost of smartcard will be borne by Central government, and thebeneficiary will be required to pay Rs 30 per annum asregistration/renewal fee. The prescribed premiumof Rs 750 per member-family will be borne by theCentral and State Governments in the ratio of 75:25.The package of benefits will include: (i) cashless attendanceto all covered ailments; (ii) hospitalizationexpenses, taking care of most common illnesses, (iii)all pre-existing diseases to be covered, (iv) transportationcosts subject to prescribed limits payable to thebeneficiary. Flexibility is provided to the States to addto the benefits by meeting the additional premiumrequirements from their own resources. State governmentswould decide the Implementing Agency andalso bear the administrative costs.4.2.25 There are 6 crore BPL families. They will becovered in five years (1.2 crore per annum). The totalcost of the scheme over the Eleventh Five Year Plan isestimated at Rs 7078.25 crore.Extension of National Old Age PensionScheme (NOAPS)4.2.26 The National Social Assistance Programme(NSAP) came into effect from 15 August 1995 as a100% Centrally Sponsored Programme, with threecomponents namely, NOAPS, National Family BenefitScheme, and NMBS. The NMBS has since beentransferred to the MoHFW with effect from 1.4.2001.The NSAP aims at providing social security in case ofold age, death of primary breadwinner, and maternity.The main objective of the NOAPS is ensure a minimumnational standard of social assistance in additionto the benefit that States are already providing,without displacing the expenditure by States on socialprotection schemes. The scheme is aimed at seniorcitizens, that is, over 65 years or above, who are destitutein the sense of having little or no regular meansof subsistence from his/her own sources of income orthrough support from family members or othersources. Major modifications in NSAP are beingproposed in the Eleventh Plan to provide more comprehensivecoverage to the old (details in Chapter 3,Vol. III).Unorganized Sector Workers—Conditionsof Service Law4.2.27 The unorganized section of agricultural sector(consisting of crop cultivation and other agriculturalactivities such as forestry, livestock, and fishing), notprotected under the Plantations Workers Act, hasneither formal system of social security nor regulationof conditions of work. The government hastaken note of the concerns expressed by the NCEUSand is examining the desirability of enacting laws regulatingthe minimum conditions of work of agriculturalwage workers and provide a measure of socialsecurity to agricultural wage workers and marginal andsmall farmers in the unorganized sector. Similarprovisions would be made for other workers in thenon-agricultural unorganized sector as well as informal/unorganizedworkers in the organized sectorconsisting of wage workers, independent selfemployed,and workers who are self-employed athome, whose minimum conditions of work arenot regulated by any other legislation. The provisionof a statutory package of National Minimum SocialSecurity to which all unorganized (agricultural andnon-agricultural) workers are entitled need to beconsidered. There may be Social Security AdvisoryBoards and dispute resolution mechanisms to overseeand monitor the implementation and ensure that eachsuch worker has the sense of being provided with whatis due to him/her.SOCIAL SECURITY: APPROACH AND STRATEGYFOR THE ELEVENTH FIVE YEAR PLAN4.2.28 A protective social security mechanism, takingcare of the adversity aspects of ill-health, accidents/death, and old age would be established at the core.The other vulnerability aspects due to in-built deficienciesas they exist now, such as lack of access for the poorto credit/finance (especially for the self-employed),