Digitalisation helps PMC overcome malpractices in Health scheme

PUNE

The Pune Municipal Corporation’s (PMC) digitisation of the Urban Poor Health Scheme (UPHS) has helped officials in eliminating misuse and malpractices in the scheme. The city body used computerised technologies to identify residents who were paying lakh of rupees in property taxes while still taking advantage of the health scheme meant for economically weaker sections.

According to civic officials, all such applications discovered by the software have been rejected following an additional investigation.

The PMC initiated the UPHS a decade ago with the goal of providing free or discounted medical treatment to the economically weaker section at hospitals affiliated with the scheme.

The scheme was previously limited to citizens with a yearly income of up to ₹1 lakh, but it was expanded to ₹2 lakh in 2019. The PMC bears the cost of treatment up to ₹1 lakh under the programme, while the civic body bears the cost of treatment of up to ₹2 lakh in the case of critical illness.

The civic authority spends approximately ₹50 to 60 crores on the scheme each year.

In the past, the PMC has discovered fraud and misuse of the system. There have been occasions where citizens were disqualified for the plan but continued to benefit from it for years. To put an end to this and increase openness, the PMC launched the online process and digitalisation of the UPHC.

According to a top PMC official who spoke on the condition of anonymity, the UPHS health cards must be reissued every year in April.

“We started this process in April this month, and the software itself gave us the details of the citizens who pay property taxes to PMC and have benefited from the health scheme.” “It is the system that provides us with an automated update.” We discovered 12 such applicants who pay property taxes to PMC in the range of ₹50K to ₹2 lakh every year. One might guess what their property cost and annual income would be if the property tax was high. All such applications notified by the software were further investigated and later rejected,” said the official.

As per the officials, currently, 2,625 families have Health cards of UPHS, out of them 1840 have been approved, 769 are pending and 12 have been cancelled and 4 are under scrutiny.

Dr Bhagwan Pawar, Health Officer of PMC, said, the use of software was started to bring transparency to the scheme and make the entire process digital. “The decision was taken by PMC to make sure eligible beneficiaries are not deprived of their rights and no one is taking any undue advantage of the scheme. We will follow the rule and only the eligible people will be given the benefit of the scheme,” he said.