State insurance scheme:Technical glitches delay issuance of e-cards

Ajay Joshi

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, August 22

Even after a district-level promotional event on Tuesday kicked off the application process for e-cards to avail benefits under the Ayushman Bharat- Sarbat Sehat Bima Yojana, beneficiaries of the insurance scheme could be seen jostling to get their cards prepared at the Civil Hospital.

They had to wait for long hours in the queues due to slow processing and technical snarls. The processing time for one card was around 30 minutes which was sometimes extended to even 60 minutes due to technical glitches.

A project coordinator of a private hospital empanelled under the scheme said it took only 10 to 15 minutes to prepare around five cards of a family benefiting under the scheme. Kasturi Devi, who had come from Pratap Bagh, said she had been standing for around three hours in the queue but her work had not been done. Similarly, an elderly lady said the creation of cards was taking around an hour, causing inconvenience to them.

On a visit to Civil Hospital, it was also reported that the processing of cards was halted on Thursday due to the continuous rush and beneficiaries were returned empty-handed. Operator Balwant Manni said the e-cards were issued only to beneficiaries seeking urgent medical treatment on Thursday. The windows remained shut for other applicants. People, who had come from distant places, said the hospital authorities should have informed them earlier about their decision to not make cards on Thursday. Balwant further said the processing of the e-cards had begun on August 1 and as many as 802 e-cards had been handed over to beneficiaries.

Dhiraj Gupta, a coordinator of the scheme, at Satyam Hospital said their operators took 15 to 20 minutes to issue the card to a beneficiary. However, the processing took half-an-hour sometimes, when the server went down.

Deputy Medical Superintendent Harpreet Mann stated that the cards were issued on a priority basis to patients who had come for the treatment, however, the counter resumed for other beneficiaries also later in the afternoon.