Thiruvananthapuram: The roll out of MEDISEP, an insurance scheme providing cashless medical care for State employees and pensioners, is likely to be delayed due to glitches in collating information. The scheme has been slated for a January launch.
Further, it was found that MEDISEP - abbreviation for Medical Insurance for State Employees and Pensioners - excluded the parents and children of pensioners. But the scheme would cover the parents and children, up to the age of 25, of serving personnel.
Incidentally, both pensioners and those in service would have to pay an equal monthly premium of Rs 500. On retirement, the parents of the employees lose the insurance cover, and to include them in another insurance scheme, would require at least RS 20,000 a person, per annum, as premium.
The government has not yet initiated steps to inform pensioners of the procedures to join MEDISEP. A government order in this regard said only those who had not submitted personal details, and those who wished to make corrections in the details provided, would have to submit fresh applications.
Some treasury officials, however, have been creating confusion by collecting applications from all pensioners. There have also been widespread complaints that the information of those who had already applied were missing from the database. Calls made to toll-free numbers were frequently left unanswered.
If the husband and wife are government employees or pensioners, both of them have to pay the monthly premium, but they will get only the cover of Rs 3 lakh meant for one person.
Long wait for third instalment of pension dues
The State government pensioners, numbering about 5.25 lakh are a discontented lot after the government postponed the payment of two instalments of dues of their revised pension.
The government, in an order issued before the Assembly election, had assured that the dues would be cleared in four instalments. The pension was revised with retrospective effect from July 2019.
Though the first two instalments were disbursed, the pensioners were yet to receive the third instalment due in August last, and the fourth in November.
The pensioners were expecting to receive the dues before the end of the financial year on March 31.
The government has now informed that the third instalments would be disbursed during the financial year 2022-23, and the fourth in the next fiscal. In short, pensioners might have to wait till March 2023 for the third instalment.
It has been alleged that pensioners were being ignored even as the government was splurging money without control.
