RSBY National Workshop at Ranchi

The fourth RSBY National workshop is being organized at Ranchi from 09th to 11th April 2012. All the States active in RSBY are participating in this workshop. Representatives of Insurance Companies, Third Party Administrators, Smart Card Service Providers, International Agencies and other interested agencies are participating in this workshop.

Second Edition of RSBY Newsletter Available now

The second edition of RSBY newsletter RSBY Connect is available on the RSBY website. It can be downloaded from here.

Comments and suggestions are welcome and invited.

RSBY Takes Decision to migrate to 64kb Smart Cards

Ministry of Labour and Employment, Government of India has taken a decision to move from current 32kb smart cards to 64kb smart cards in a phased way. From April 2012 identified set of districts will start issuing 64kb smart cards. All the other districts will migrate to 64kb over next 12 months. 

Specifications of new Enrollment software have been released by MoLE and new enrollment software will be ready from April 2012. 

MoLE has decided that now the Transaction Software will be prepared at the central level and will be provided free of cost to all the Insurance Companies. This Transaction Software is being prepared at present and will be released by April 2012.

It has also been decided that all the Smart Card Service Providers will need to be accredited by Quality Council of India and they need to apply by end of February 2012 and get the accreditation by 15th March 2012. 

RSBY Newsletter

RSBY has started publishing a monthly newsletter to share with the larger audience information about the scheme in a structured basis periodically. The first newsletter in this series was released in February 2012 and this is available here.

Now suggestions and articles are invited for the new newsletter for the month of March which can be sent on rsby.connect@gmail.com in terms of good practices, innovations, beneficiary experience, write-ups etc.

You are also welcome to provide your suggestions for the newsletter.

RSBY Story on BBC

BBC is doing a story on RSBY and their team is visitng field and meeting people who are working for RSBY. BBC will telecast this story on 30th May at 11:00am in their programme called India Business Review and will be again shown in the night at 10:00pm.

Announcement of National Workshop of RSBY 2010

Government of India is organizing a Two-day National Workshop of Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) in Chandigarh from 02nd July to 3rd July 2010. Representatives of Government of India, State Governments, Other Government Agencies, Insurance Companies, Third Party Administrators, Smart Card Agencies, Public & Private hospitals, and International Agencies who are associated with RSBY will participate in this workshop.

Interested people/ organizations may send their request to participate in this workshop by filling the registration form at http://www.rsby.in/Registration1.aspx . Please note that filling up of this form does not guarantee participation in this workshop. Government of India will send invitation to selected individuals/ organizations in advance of the event.

Hospital and NGO Workshop in Jharkhand

Government of Jharkhand is organising a workshop with NGOs and Hospitals on 24th April in Ranchi. The first half of the workshop will be focussed on discussion with NGOs and their role in RSBY. Experience of few NGOs who are working in the field will be shared. Government will discuss with NGOs about their role and how they can participate in RSBY to make it more effective in reaching the beneficiaries.

The second half of the workshop will be with hospitals and the agenda will be to discuss with hospitals about their role in RSBY and to explain them the benefits of joining RSBY. Few hospitals will share their expernece of RSBY also in this workshop.

RSBY Now on Facebook

A Group of RSBY has been created on the facebook which is called "Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana". This can also be used for information dissemination and discussions. The RSBY movie and few photographs of the scheme are already available there now.

RSBY Launched in More North Eastern States

RSBY was launched in the States of Arunachal  Pradesh and Mizoram from this year. The State Workshop was organised on 25th March in Itanagar and on 26th March in Aizawl. reresentatives of the Government of India, State Government officials, District officials, Inaurance Company representatives, TPA representatives, representatives of hospitals and NGOs participated in the workshop. In Arunachal Pradesh RSBY is being implemented by Rural Development Department and in Mizoram it is being implemented by Department of Health.

With these workshops, now RSBY has been launched in all the North Eastern States except Sikkim State.

Extension of RSBY to NREGA Beneficiaries, Railway Coolies and Hawkers

In view of the success of the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) scheme, the Union government has decided to extend its benefits to NREGA beneficiaries who have worked for more than 15 days during the preceding financial year in a move to provide health insurance to them.

Railway Minister in her railway budget also announced extension of RSBY to railway coolies and hawkers across India.

In addition to the Building and Construction Workers who have already been covered under the scheme these announcements indicates that now RSBY is going to cover people who may not be BPL. 

RSBY Launched in Manipur

State workshop of RSBY was organised in Imphal on 19th February. Government of Manipur has decided to implement RSBY in all the nine districts of the State. New India Insurance Company has been selected through an open tendering process and they will be implementing the scheme in the State.