Jubilee Post News & Views
1445 cards cancelled more under scanner
LUCKNOW: Fraudsters sneaked in to the software of the flagship health scheme of the central government Ayushman Bharat scheme, misused a feature and made bogus golden cards that enable one for cashless treatment at empaneled hospitals.
State Agency for Comprehensive Health Insurance and Integrated Services (SACHIS) has been able to identify and cancel over 1400 such golden cards with maximum 704 in Agra. But the episode has revealed that no scheme is safe unless security features are upgraded at interval.
Fraudulently made 1445 golden cards under the Ayushman Bharat scheme have been cancelled and 49-hospitals have been de-empaneled. All this with the misuse of a feature called Add New Member Facility in the Ayushman software. The feature allows to add new member in the family such as a baby born of a newlywed woman.
Agra has reported maximum 704 such fraudulently made cards, and Jhansi has reported 204 cases of bogus Ayushman Bharat Golden cards. Lucknow reported 7 cases. All these bogus cards are cancelled.
What the frauds did?
Frauds used the feature Add New Member Facility. They prepared bogus ration cards of genuine Ayushman beneficiaries and added the names in it. A photocopy of the same (ration card) was submitted with the Ayushman Bharat counters at hospitals where the Ayushman Mitras, volunteers working there, uploaded the ration card on the server thinking it to be genuine.
As the name was added in the ration card the names were added in the Ayushman Bharat account of the family also, thereby making a bogus name beneficiary in the same family. Interestingly this addition was not reported to the head of the family by any means such as the SMS.
A family under Ayushman Bharat gets up to Rs 5 lakh of cashless treatment in one year and the entire amount is shared by the family. So if one member avails facility for Rs 40,000 the balance for the rest of the family, for that year, remains Rs 4.60 lakh. With bogus names in the family beneficiary list the money could be syphoned.
“Apart from the 1445 cards identified we are screening more lists to ensure no such bogus name is left in the list of beneficiaries,” said a senior official with State Agency for Comprehensive Health Insurance and Integrated Services (SACHIS) that is monitoring the scheme in Uttar Pradesh.
Assessing involvement of some of the hospitals 49 have already been de-empaneled in the state and more names shall come up soon. Ration cards were used at Ayushm Bharat counters made at hospitals.
In Uttar Pradesh there are 1.18 crore families covered under Ayushman Bharat scheme. Two FIRs have also been lodged in this connection.
Some of the important districts where golden cards are cancelled are Agra (704), Amroha (54), Auraiya (5), Balrampur (1), Barabanki (2), Lucknow (7), Bareilly (3), Basti (2), Bulandshahr (72), Chandauli (19), Jhansi (204), Gorakhpur (60) and hardoi (20).
In Lucknow 19 more families are being scanned first out of the total 191800 cards made for the beneficiaries.
