The Karnataka Cabinet on Thursday approved the 'Sandhya Kiran' cashless healthcare scheme for state pensioners below 70 years, family pensioners and their eligible dependents, according to reports from PTI and ETGovernment. The scheme aims to provide financial and health security to retired employees and their families and will initially cover about 4.93 lakh beneficiaries, including 3.11 lakh State Government pensioners below 70 years and their eligible dependents. Formulated under the Ayushman Bharat-Arogya Karnataka regulations, the scheme will provide eligible families cashless treatment of up to ₹5 lakh a year on a floater basis for secondary, tertiary and emergency care at empanelled hospitals. The benefit packages and revised rates under AB-ArK will also apply to 'Sandhya Kiran' scheme. As per the CMO press release, this scheme is described as a vital social security measure ensuring quality, affordable and cashless healthcare services for State Government pensioners and their families, helping significantly reduce the financial burden of unexpected medical expenses.
Service pensioners will contribute 1.25% of their basic pension, while family pensioners will contribute 0.75% of their basic family pension. According to the calculations provided, for a basic pension of ₹30,000, service pensioners will pay ₹375 monthly and ₹4,500 annually, while family pensioners contributing 0.75% will pay ₹225 monthly and ₹2,700 annually. For a basic pension of ₹40,000 monthly, service pensioners would contribute approximately ₹500 monthly under the proposed rate. For higher pension amounts, the monthly contributions range from ₹625 to ₹750 for service pensioners and ₹375 to ₹450 for family pensioners, with corresponding annual contributions. The scheme is expected to generate about ₹117 crore annually in contributions, against an estimated annual treatment cost of ₹81.75 crore.
Of the treatment cost, 70% will be met from beneficiaries' contributions and 30% by the state government, amounting to about ₹57.22 crore and ₹24.53 crore, respectively, as reported by PTI. To maintain the scheme's financial stability, the government has proposed automatically increasing the contribution rate by 0.05 percentage points whenever corpus utilisation exceeds 85%. This premium social security measure ensures quality, affordable and cashless healthcare services for State Government pensioners and their families, helping significantly reduce the financial burden of unexpected medical expenses. For pensioners, the scheme could reduce the need to meet large medical bills from retirement savings, particularly for hospitalisation and emergency treatment covered under the scheme.
The Suvarna Arogya Suraksha Trust will implement the scheme, with beneficiary registration, contribution collection, hospital-network administration, cashless treatment, claims management and overall oversight handled through the AB-Ark system. According to the CMO press release, this scheme is described as a vital social security measure ensuring quality, affordable and cashless healthcare services for State Government pensioners and their families, helping significantly reduce the financial burden of unexpected medical expenses. The scheme provides comprehensive healthcare coverage for eligible beneficiaries across the state, with the AB-Ark system managing all operational aspects from registration to claims processing. The scheme aims to provide financial and health security to retired employees and their families, with the AB-Ark system managing all operational aspects from beneficiary registration to claims processing.
