Ayushman Sahakar Scheme: Key Facts

On October 19, 2020, the Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar launched the Ayushman Sahakar Scheme. The scheme has been launched to assist the cooperatives in the country. The scheme will assist the cooperatives to play a crucial role in creating health care infrastructure in the country.

Highlights

The scheme was formulated by the National Cooperative Development Corporation. The NCDC will provide loans of Rs 10,000 crores to the cooperatives under the scheme. This includes financial assistance and working capital to meet operational requirements in health sector. The scheme also provides 1% interest subvention to the cooperatives where women are in majority.

Key Features

The scheme is aligned with that of the National Health Policy, 2017. The scheme will use the funds to assist cooperative hospitals. It will also cover health insurance, medical, nursing education and paramedical education. Also, the scheme includes health systems such as AYUSH.

The scheme has been launched with the aim of bringing transformations in the health services, especially in rural areas. It will strengthen farmer welfare activities of GoI.

National Development Cooperative Development Corporation

It was established under the NCDC Act, 1963. It operates under Ministry of Agriculture and Family Welfare. It plans, promotes and finances programmes that are related to storage, processing, marketing, import and export of agricultural produce. It finances projects in rural industrial cooperative sectors.

The funding of NCDC comes through allocation by GoI, international assistance and market borrowings.

AYUSH

The Ayush Sahakar scheme has included to create AYUSH facilities as well. The GoI is giving utmost importance to AYUSH measure in the fight against COVID-19. Through traditional AYUSH measures, the GoI intends to increase the immunity of the country. Along with vaccine trials, funds were allocated for AYUSH based drugs as well.

As of October 1, 2020, 58 Ayurveda based COVID-19 trials were registered. Of these 70% were sponsored by GoI.

Month: Current Affairs - October, 2020