Govt To Use Uunclaimed Funds For Providing Health Care To Senior Citizens: Jaitley
10 September, Kochi
Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today informed that the government was seriously considering using unclaimed funds in PPF and EPF for providing health care to the senior citizens.
Announcing the achievements of Karunya Benevolent Fund, Kerala Governments lottery-linked financial support scheme with 111,111 beneficiaries here, he said a programme was approved in the last financial year wherein all unclaimed amounts in various government investments are now to be taken away for use for providing health care for senior citizens.”
Pointing out that India today was an uninsured and unpensioned society, Jaitley said that only 11 per cent of the people in this country are availing pension and the insurance benefitss are also available only to a few.
Stating the naked fact was the private health care across the world was very costly, the Minister said that while compared with the developed countries the cost of health care in private sector in the country was very less which, according to him, attracted many patients from across the world.
It have been universally accepted that even though private sector health care is very costly. Compared to the cost in the developed countries, India is much better. That is one reason why patients from across the world are now attracted to come to India. We want to call it as medical tourism he claimed.
However, though we have lot of better and modern treatment facilities for heart ailments, the country was facing serious problem of majority of the people in the country not being able to afford the treatment in private institutions as many people live below poverty line, he said. To tide over the situation and help in providing better health care, the governments had been coming up various social security schemes with the goal of reaching the developmental fruits to all sections of people.
Though the government had succeeded in setting up modern medical institutions in the country under public sector still there were many problems including shortage of five lakh doctors in government sector alone, he added.
The Minister lauded the activities of Kerala Government in collecting money through lottery and providing free treatment to the needy and in due course other states would follow such schemes in their states as well, he added.
Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, Finance Minister K M Mani, Fisheries Minister K Babu, PWD Minister Ebrahikum Kunju, Health Minister V Sivakumar and other political leaders present the function.