Peshawar: Prime Minister Imran Khan inaugurated Sehat Insaf Card (SIC) Program for the population of Malakand Divison in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) on November 6.
The program will dispense health insurance cover to around 1.6 million families of the Malakand Division.
The families registered with the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) can receive free health services up to an annual limit of Rs 1 million per family.
KP government has earmarked Rs 10 billion for the scheme this year while it would start allocating Rs 18 billion for it from the next fiscal year. The provincial government will pay a premium equivalent to Rs 2,950 to the State Life Insurance Company for each family.
The transgender persons in the province, holding a NIC, would also be liable to avail insurance cover. A transgender person would be considered a family which means that it would be able to spend Rs 1 million annually on health services.
In the first phase, the project will be launched in districts including Chitral, Lower Chitral, Upper Dir, Lower Dir, Malakand, and Swat this month.
The third phase will include Haripur, Swabi, Mardan, Nowshera, Charsadda, and Peshawar districts while in the last phase, the program will cover the entire population of the province.
The families of erstwhile Federally Administrated Tribal Areas (FATA), now Merged Tribal Areas (MTDs), are already availing the facility.
SIC is considered to be a flagship project of the PTI government under Prime Minister Imran Khan who had been vehement about making Pakistan a welfare state.
It can be deemed as a package ensuring social security which would help ameliorate people’s standard of living and to slash the poverty rate. The dilemma that has long-existed in Pakistan is that families get to spend their savings of years on the treatment of a family member if one gets diagnosed with a severe disease.
The introduction of health insurance shouldered by the state is a sigh of relief for many middle class and poor families across KP.
Earlier, the PTI government, during its previous tenure in KP, had launched a project on a limited scale. However, it is now being expanded to the entire population of the province.
The program has managed to hold a place in the provincial budget. The people of KP holding a NIC would be eligible to retrieve free health services at designated government and private hospitals.