New health plan may miss April 1 deadline

The scheme, meant to give insurance cover of up to Rs 1 lakh, is supposed to benefit 400 mn people

The government could miss the earlier target of launching the new National Health Protection Scheme (NHPS) from April 1, meant to give insurance cover up to Rs 1 lakh for below poverty line (BPL) families.

A senior health ministry official said, "We are in the process of inter-ministerial consultations. We might not be able to roll out the scheme from April 1 as planned earlier."

The government had planned to end the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) once the new one got going. In the former, all BPL families were to health insurance up to Rs 30,000.

The new scheme was to be