Modicare: Insurance Policy 2019

Jaitley promises succour, belatedly, to aggrieved sectors. But is it too thin a supply of oxygen for India’s distressed?

- Lola Nayar

There’s a loud attempt to woo back a critical community the Narendra Modi government is widely alleged to have aliena­ted country-wide. Farmers are now being offered a raised minimum support price, while there’s a promise of heavy investment in the agriculture markets. Budget 2018-19 also proposes to aid the MSME sector that provides the bulk of employment. In all, the priorities remind one that this is finance minister Arun Jaitely’s last full Budget ahead of next year’s general elections.

Alongside is a major sop for the poor through a new health insurance scheme that is expected to cover 10 crore families or people five times more that figure. Whether it will replace the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) or be a parallel scheme is not yet clear. Even experts aren’t sure about the selection of the families eligible for the Rs 5 lakh per annum health insurance. “The National Health Protection Scheme is not backed by any budgetary allocation other than that for RSBY,” points out Subrat Das of the Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability. “There is a lot of stress on insurance where allocation for RSBY has increased from Rs 470 crore in 2017-18 (revenue estimates) to Rs 2,050 crore in 2018-19 (budget estimates).”

As people await details on schemes to boost the farm sector and to impr­o­ve education and healthcare that figure among the key thrust areas in the Budget, alongside a continued push to infrastructure, the common man finds nothing new on the plate. In fact, he will be picking up part of the tab for a promised improvement in health and education facilities through a one per cent higher cess.