Bandi demands Congress government to clear Arogyasri, fee reimbursement bills

Due to non-payment of Arogyasri amount, poor and the needy are not able to get health services from network hospitals, says Union Minister of State for Home

Hyderabad: Blaming the Telangana government for the Arogyasri scheme empanelled hospitals’ decision to stop providing services under the scheme from January 10, Union Minister of State for Home Bandi Sanjay demanded the government to immediately clear the pending bills of Arogyasri.

The Telangana Aarogyasri Network Hospitals Association (TANHA) has announced that it will suspend Aarogyasri services from January 10 due to a pending payment of approximately Rs 1,100 crore from the government.

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In a letter addressed to Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy on Thursday, Sanjay said due to the non-payment of the Arogyasri amount, the poor and needy were not able to get health services from the empanelled hospitals. “On one hand, you have announced that you are increasing the ‘Arogyasri’ limit to Rs 10 lakh and expanding health services, but when it comes to implementation, you are troubling the Arogyasri network hospitals by not paying the actual bills. To what extent is it reasonable to deny private medical treatment to the poor?” he asked.

Coming down heavily on the Congress government, the union Minister alleged that due to the negligence of the government people were not able to get treatment.

Commenting on the fee reimbursement issue, the senior BJP leader alleged that the Congress government was deliberately watering down the fee reimbursement scheme. Nearly 13 lakh students studying courses like degree, engineering, pharmacy and nursing from intermediate level in the State were pursuing their education depending on fee reimbursement and if the government did not reimburse the amount, the students might not be able to complete the courses, he said.