Vijay Mohan

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 30

Several measures have been introduced to streamline the functioning of the Ex-servicemen Contributory Health Scheme (ECHS), the functioning of which had been affected by financial and administrative ills over the past several years. The measures include easing norms of procuring medical supplies, revamping the command and control structure and issuing smart cards.A major relief to ECHS beneficiaries is a policy introduced to de-link supply of medicines from the Armed Forces Medical Supply Depots (AFMSD) and empowering the Senior Executive Medical Officers (SEMOs) at military stations to be solely responsible for procuring medicines.Earlier, all medicines to ECHS polyclinics were routed through the AFMSD and the non-availability of medicines at polyclinics had become a serious issue due to logistics as well as budgetary constraints.The scheme was launched in 2003 to provide medical cover to retired armed forces personnel and their dependants and reduce the workload of service hospitals. At present, it caters to 52 lakh beneficiaries through a nationwide network of 421 operational polyclinics and 2,247 private hospitals.ECHS members are also being issued new smart cards having security features to guard against fraud and misuse. These will have an embedded chip to store personal and medical information of members and their family members.The income criteria from all sources for being eligible to become a member’s dependent has been revised from Rs 3,500 a month to Rs 9,000 plus dearness allowance.The scheme has also been extended to eligible Army Postal Service pensioners and the Defence Ministry has been accorded sanction for follow-up treatment from government hospitals and Regional Cancer Centres. The expenditure so incurred will be reimbursable as per rates of the hospital.