BANGALORE: Without having to spend any money, about 31,000 farmers or their dependents underwent surgeries and 1.89 lakh made use of outpatient consultancy services in 2006-07.

This landmark achievement was made possible by the unique, low-cost insurance scheme for healthcare, Yeshasvini. In the past year the scheme has made rapid strides in rural Karnataka, emerging as a model for other States, according to senior officials of the Cooperation Department.

Free treatment

Under the scheme, those insured can avail themselves of free treatment in a network of hospitals. The number of hospitals that are part of the scheme, which operates under the aegis of the Cooperative Department, increased from 165 to 289 from April 2007. Out of the 289 hospitals, only 38 are government hospitals, according to the officials.

To provide quality healthcare to farmers of Bidar and Gulbarga districts, which border Andhra Pradesh, three Apollo Hospitals in Hyderabad have been roped into the service. A farmer who joins the scheme has to pay a premium of Rs. 120 a year.

A sum of Rs. 30.68 crore was spent on surgeries in 2006-07. Since the launch of the scheme in 2002 by the S.M. Krishna government, 72,370 surgeries have been performed and 3,19,935 farmers or their dependents have made use of outpatient consultancy services, the officials said.

One of them said, "This is the world's largest self-funded healthcare scheme offering a low-priced product for wide surgical cover to the farmer and his dependent family members. This is a contributory scheme in which the beneficiaries contribute a small amount of money every year to avail themselves of any treatment or surgery needed during the period."

Medical emergencies

Besides 1,600 types of surgeries, the Yeshasvini scheme now covers medical emergencies such as drowning, dog bite, snakebite, burns, electric shock, accidents involving farm implements, childbirth and neonatal care. The scheme has a corpus of Rs. 19.85 crore, and there were 19.54 lakh farmers and their family members insured as on April 1, 2007.

The Yeshasvini Trust has constituted a subcommittee headed by the Additional Registrar of Cooperatives for weekly settlement of medical bills. In case of emergency surgeries, the Trust offers Web-enabled pre-authorisation to hospitals located in remote areas, the officials said.

The scheme has received a lot of appreciation from poor farmers. According to a National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development survey (2006), 60 per cent of the sample beneficiaries were satisfied with the scheme, 30 per cent expressed partial satisfaction and 10 per cent were dissatisfied.

The World Bank too has shown interest in the functioning of the scheme in order to find more pragmatic solutions towards low-cost, high-quality healthcare in the developing world. President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, the International Labour Organisation and Ralf Radermacher of the University of Cologne, Germany, have also lauded the execution of the programme. Dr. Kalam has appealed to other States to adopt the Karnataka model to provide quality health services to the poor.

The University of Cologne, in its report, said, "The Yeshasvini Cooperative Farmers' Healthcare Scheme is a young but incredibly successful micro-insurance scheme in Karnataka."

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