Departments differ on funding of Biju Swasthya Kalyan Yojana

Odisha government's two departments Wednesday differed on the funding pattern of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik's flagship health scheme the Biju Swasthya Kalyan Yojana (BSKY) launched in the state.

The BSKY was launched in the state on August 15.

While the Health and Family Welfare department claimed that the BSKY was fully state funded, Finance department revealed that centre too contributes to Odisha's universal healthcare coverage scheme.

Additional Chief Secretary, Finance Department, T K Pandey in a press conference Wednesday after presentation of the supplementary budget, had informed that an amount of Rs 700 crore will be contributed by the Central government towards BSKY while Rs 1375 crore will be spent by the state government.

Pandey informed that an amount of Rs 2075 crore per annum will be spent on implementation of BSKY in the state.

Immediately after Pandey's press conference, Health and Family welfare department in a statement claimed that there is no Central government support to the BSKY which is fully funded by the state government out of its own resources.

The statement said that the state government will spend Rs 1003.52 crores for the BSKY in the current financial year.

"An impression has been created in certain sections of the media that there is a Government of India contribution towards the Biju Swasthya KalyanYojana(BSKY), which is not a fact," the Health and Family Welfare department statement said.

It said that the BSKY is an umbrella scheme of Odisha government, which aims to provide universal health coverage, with special emphasis on the health protection of economically vulnerable families.

Under the BSKY, annual health coverage of Rs 5 lakh per family and Rs 7 lakh for the women members of the family, is provided for over 70 lakh economically vulnerable families in the state. "Towards this component, the state government will be bearing Rs 290 crores in the financial year 2018-19," it said.

BSKY also has provision for free health services for all (irrespective of income, status or residence) in all state government health care facilities starting from Sub center level up to District Head Quarter Hospital level. Towards this, the state government will be spending Rs 713.52 crores in the financial year 2018-19.

On Pandey's statement in the press conference, the Health and Family Welfare department said that Additional Chief Secretary, Finance, inadvertently mentioned the Central share toward the National Health Mission, which is a separate National scheme to fund various Public Health Programmes in the country.

This (NHM) support is provided by the Centre to all States, since the inception of the Mission. This share of the centre towards NHM funding, comes to about Rs 785 crores.

The Odisha government has not accepted the Centre's Ayushman Bharat Health Scheme.