The Delhi Cabinet has decided to constitute a fund with the name of “Delhi Arogya Kosh” to provide financial assistance to poor patients suffering from life threatening diseases. The Delhi CM, Mrs Sheila Dikshit, held a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday and announced to release `100 crores as corpus fund to make it functional.
“As per the present rules of the Delhi Arogya Nidhi, financial assistance is limited only to below poverty line (BPL) families and the assistance is only up to `1.5 lakhs only one time. All those patients who have been issued either a BPL or Antodya Ration card would be eligible for this facility,” said an officer, adding that the families whose annual income in up to `1 lakh are also be eligible.
Maximum assistance up to `1.5 lakhs per year would be admissible to a patient.
However, in case of certain treatments like bone marrow transplantation, kidney transplantation and liver transplantation, the maximum assistance up to `2.5 lakhs would be admissible on one-time basis. In such cases, maximum grant of `1.5 lakhs per year for pre-and-post-operative procedures would be available in addition to the maximum assistance of `2.5 lakhs for the procedure itself.