Health scheme for retired personnel faces cash woes

NEW DELHI:  The Centre’s medical support scheme for ex-servicemen and their kin is on a hobble, as it is facing a crippling funds crunch. Lack of funds in implementing the scheme has resulted in pending hospital bills and difficulty in procuring medicines.Sources said unless urgent measures are taken to revive the flagging scheme, the problems for ex-servicemen, seeking quality medical care, are likely to mount. Senior Army officials said they had brought the matter to the notice of Defence Ministry.

The funds crunch has resulted in pending hospital bills worth around a staggering `2,000 crore.
Sources in the ministry said they are aware of the plight of ex-servicemen, but don’t have much resources to help them. “We had sought a budget of `4,600 crore in the previous year, but were only allocated `3,200 crore. In the face of funds crunch, the problems cropped up and snowballed by the end of the financial year (2018 –’19),” a source said.

The plight of the ex-servicemen has exacerbated to the extent that they are now finding it difficult to avail proper medicines. Not only was the budgetary allocation for defence far less than was sought, the outlay for the Armed Forces Medical Directorate was also pruned. If the situation is handled properly, the problems would escalate, the source said.

As many as 60,000 personnel retire every year, thereby increasing the number of subscribers of this health scheme by around `2 crore. “The number of new subscribers increases every year and this requires an increase in budgetary allocation by about 20% to 25%,” the source said.