Elections block Yashaswini target in Mysore

The Karnataka government had set itself a target to cover 300,000 farmers under the popular ‘Yashaswini’ health scheme in Mysore district. But, the district has so far not met even one-third of the target. As against the target for 2009-10, only 98,504 have been covered.

The reason for the slow pace of enrolments in the health protection scheme of the state is attributed to the gram panchayat and Legislative Council elections in the last three months.

Last year, 153,368 farmers were brought under the scheme in the district. Of them, 5,806 availed of treatment as outpatients, while 3,181 got treatment as inpatients. Rs 3.08 crore was paid to the network hospitals listed under the scheme for surgeries.

So far in the present year, 872 farmers have taken treatment as outpatients and 232 as inpatients. The amount spent till June-end on patients who underwent surgery was Rs 17.96 lakh.

During 2009-10, the maximum number of beneficiaries were from Mysore taluk, 2,502. Rs 94.26 lakh was spent on their surgeries. The lowest number was from Periyapatna taluk, 819 and the amount paid was Rs 22.63 lakh.

While there were 1,369 beneficiaries in Nanjangud taluk (Rs 42.94 lakh), 1,618 beneficiaries in T Narasipur taluk (Rs 53.59 lakh) and 975 people in H D Kote taluk (Rs 32.93 lakh) derived benefit. An amount of Rs 3.08 crore was spent on 8,987 outpatients. On inpatients, the expenses was Rs 96.67 lakh over and above the total subscription of Rs 2.11 crore collected from the enlisted farmers.

Giving these figures at the district-level, Yashaswini scheme implementation committee meeting on Tuesday, Mysore-Chamarajanagar District Central Co-operative Bank president C Basave Gowda asked the bank and co-operative department officials to ensure the target set for the district was achieved during the year.

The Mysore District Milk Producers’ Federation paid an incentive of Rs 50 to those enlisted under the Yashaswini scheme. It was the only federation which offered such an incentive, federation president Omprakash said.