Agartala, February 6, 2024: The state government has launched a new health insurance scheme, ‘Mukhya Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana’, to provide cashless and paperless health care services to all the families in the state. The scheme, which was announced in the 2023-24 budget session, will offer health insurance benefits up to 5 lakh rupees per year to each family. The scheme will cover 4 lakh 15 thousand families who were not eligible for the central government’s Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana, which already covers 450,000 families in the state.

Tourism Minister Sushant Chowdhury announced the launch of the scheme at a press conference at the secretariat here in Agartala city on Tuesday. He said that the beneficiaries of the scheme will receive smart cards that will not require renewal and will be automatically updated every year on 1st April. He also said that the state government has allocated 59 crore rupees for the scheme in the budget and will spend 104 crore rupees annually to implement it.

The minister further said that the scheme will also cover cabinet members, MLAs, and all levels of government employees, except for 10,000 construction workers under the Labor Department who are already covered by other insurances. However, he added that the government employees who are getting medical reimbursement or allowance will have to surrender them to avail the benefits of the scheme.

The minister also informed about other decisions of the cabinet, such as the approval of the recruitment of 226 people to the vacant post of Junior Physical Instructor in the Department of Youth Affairs and Sports. He also said that the cabinet has agreed to provide land to the Cachhar Cancer Hospital Research and Institute, a Silchar-based organization, for setting up a cancer hospital at Huruakandi Mouja under Dharmanagar subdivision of North Tripura district.