Kannur: The Kannur Police Arogya Nidhi Scheme which was launched six months ago by deducting a monthly share from the salary of police personnel has run into trouble.
A monthly share of Rs 200 is being deducted for the scheme. The scheme, through which Rs 65 lakh would be collected annually, has no backing of insurance or cooperative rules. Though the scheme entails providing medical treatment cost to the member and his family, the office bearers say it’s not an insurance scheme.
There is no explanation either on how the police personnel are doing business by collecting money without any backing of the law or rules. Recently they amended the rules saying that money will not be sanctioned for COVID treatment.
Complaints have been filed before the district superintendent of police alleging that applications were being rejected in a politically motivated manner.
It may be noted here that the police department’s existing scheme "Athur sevana " was stopped to launch Arogya Nidhi.
The district SP is the president, additional SP vice president of the governing council of which secretary, treasurer and members are association office bearers. The money is deposited in the name of treasurer and secretary and an audit has to be carried out by police.
Even though the scheme has 2,700 members, the governing council was constituted without convening the general body meeting.
Despite being clearly written in the rules that only general body meetings have the powers to make amendments, the governing council altered the rules last month. The maximum annual assistance of Rs 1 lakh for members and family members was changed. The treatment coverage for parents was reduced to Rs 50,000. It was decided provide only one time assistance for a disease.
Ayurveda has been kept out of the scheme. In case if anyone decides to withdraw from the scheme would lose the deposited amount. Four applications were rejected over the last four months. Though there is a clear rule that Rs 10,000 should be granted for delivery, an application for the same was rejected on October 16.
It is also alleged that while 12 applications were rejected on November 12 citing delay, some others were accepted. There are allegations that since the applications are scrutinized by district committee members of the association, many times such decisions are politically motivated.
The highest amount of Rs 80,000 received in August was by a governing council member .
Additional SP Prajeesh Thotathil, vice president Arogya Nidhi: "This is an internal scheme for the staff of the district police department. Since it is not an insurance scheme, such laws are not applicable. The amendment to the rules was made after convening the governing council meeting."
