Grounds for giving RSBY to Health Min not 'tenable': Par panel

A Parliamentary panel today said the reasons given by the government for transferring the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojna (RSBY) from the Labour Ministry to the Health Ministry are not "tenable".
The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Labour opined that the decision to keep labour-oriented schemes under the administrative control of the Labour Ministry should be revisited.
"...The contention of transferring the scheme to Health Ministry on the plea of core competence of that ministry is not tenable," the panel observed in its report tabled in both the Houses of Parliament today.
According to the government, the provision of health services is the core competence of Health Ministry. Secondly, issuance of insurance cards has to be separated from service delivery (health) to avoid possible conflict of interest, the government contended.

However, disagreeing with the government's plea, the panel observed that under the said scheme, the Centre government is administering/implementing the scheme is just confined to contributing 75 per cent of the annual premium to be paid to the health insurance provider.
According to committee, the state governments play larger role in implementation of the scheme as the selection of such insurance provider, formation of projects and determining the insurance trust/cell, mother NGO etc to monitor/supervise the scheme besides contributing the remaining 25 per cent of the annual premiums are entrusted with their implementing agencies.

Earlier in March, Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya had informed the Lok Sabha in a written reply that government has decided to transfer RSBY to Health Ministry from April 1 pursuant to its decision to make it a part of the National Health Assurance Mission to be implemented by Health Ministry.

RSBY is a social security measure for workers in unorganised sector that provides a smart card-based cashless health insurance cover of Rs 30,000 per annum to BPL family of five with an annual premium of Rs 30.
Licensed railway porters, street vendors, MGNREGA workers, beedi workers, domestic workers, sanitation workers, mine workers, rickshaw pullers, rag pickers and auto-taxi drivers are covered under the scheme.
The panel also expressed concerns over expenditure by the Labour Ministry, which was less than 40 per cent of the allocation during the first three year of 12th Plan period.
It observed that the ministry has been able to spend Rs 4,582.86 crore which constitutes less than 40 per cent of the total Plan allocation in the first three year of 12th Plan (2012-17).