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Centre extends PMGKAY, beneficiaries to get free foodgrains till Sept

Centre extends PMGKAY, beneficiaries to get free foodgrains till Sept

The Centre has extended the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY) for another six months till September 2022, Union Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution said on Saturday.
In a statement, the Ministry said that the Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has decided to extend PMGKAY till September 2022 in “keeping with the concern and sensitivity towards the poor and vulnerable sections of society”.
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This will be the sixth phase of PMGKAY. The Phase-V of the scheme was to end in March 2022. The Centre had launched the scheme in April 2020 during the first wave of Covid-19.
Describing PMGKAY as the world’s “largest food security program”, the Ministry said, “The Government has spent approximately Rs 2.60 lakh crore so far and another Rs 80,000 crore will be spent over the next six months till September 2022, taking the total expenditure under PMGKAY to nearly Rs 3.40 lakh crore.”
“This will cover nearly 80 crore beneficiaries across India and like before, would be fully funded by the Government of India,” it added.
Giving reasons for extending the scheme, the Ministry said, “Even though the Covid-19 pandemic has significantly abated and economic activities are gathering momentum, this PMGKAY extension would ensure that no poor household goes to bed without food during this time of recovery.”

“Under the extended PMGKAY, each beneficiary will get additional 5 kg free ration per person per month in addition to his normal quota of foodgrains under the NFSA. This means that every poor household would get nearly double the normal quantity of ration,” the Ministry said.
According to the Ministry, the government had allocated about 759 LMT of free foodgrains under PMGKAY till Phase V. “With another 244 LMT of free foodgrains under this extension, the aggregate allocation of free foodgrains under the scheme now stands at 1,003 LMT,” it said.

“The benefit of free ration can be availed through portability by any migrant labour or beneficiary under One Nation One Ration Card (ONORC) plan from nearly 5 lakh ration shops across the country. So far, over 61 crore portability transactions have benefitted the beneficiaries away from their homes,” it said.
“This has been made possible due to the highest ever procurement despite the century’s worst pandemic with highest ever payment to farmers by the government. For this record, production in agricultural fields by the farmers deserves to be complimented,” it added.

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‘No recourse to public funds’ FSM extension made permanent

‘No recourse to public funds’ FSM extension made permanent

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The government will permanently extend free school meals eligibility to children with “no recourse to public funds”, who were previously excluded because of their parents’ immigration status.

Children’s minister Will Quince announced today that the government will make permanent its extension of free school meals to children from families with “no recourse to public funds”. These children will also continue to attract pupil premium funding.

In England, pupils in year 3 and above are eligible for means-tested free school meals if their families receive certain benefits. But some children, some of whom are British citizens, were excluded because their parents were subject to immigration control.

Following threats of legal action, free school meals eligibility was temporarily extended to these children in April 2020 as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

It was then announced in 2021 that schools could claim pupil premium funding for children temporarily given FSM access, again following legal threats.

Change comes after ‘cross-government review’

Quince said today that the extension would be made permanent from April 19, following a “cross-government review”.

Those affected by the original extension included children supported under section 17 of the children act 1989 but whose families are subject to a restriction meaning they have “no recourse to public funds”.

It also covered the children of failed asylum seekers who are reliant on support from the Home Office under section 4 of the immigration and asylum act 1999.

The other two groups covered were the children of Zambrano carers – non-EEA citizens with a child or dependent adult who is British – and the children of those granted leave to remain until article eight of the European Convention on Human Rights.

All children from families with “no recourse to public funds” will now be eligible for free school meals, subject to certain income thresholds.

However, it is not clear whether children from families with insecure immigration status will also be covered.

Eligibility subject to income and savings thresholds

The thresholds for the extension are £22,700 outside London for families with one child, £31,200 for one-child families in London, £26,300 for multi-child families outside London and £34,800 for multi-child families in the capital.

The thresholds were developed “to create comparative thresholds with broad equivalence with families with recourse to public funds, and who qualify for free school meals due to being in receipt of welfare benefits”.

The government will also set a capital savings threshold of £16,000, the same maximum capital threshold which is in place for access to universal credit.

Newly eligible free school meals pupils will be recorded in “exactly the same way” as others, and guidance will be published on how schools should check and validate eligibility.

Children will attract pupil premium funding

All children in receipt of free school meals will attract pupil premium funding for their school, and dependent on meeting other criteria, will also be able to receive free home to school transport.

The government will “provide funding to meet the additional costs incurred through the established processes”.

Praxis, a charity that supports and campaigns for migrants and refugees, welcomed today’s announcement.

Policy and public affairs manager Josephine Whitaker-Yilmaz said the decision “ensures that children living in poverty, who were denied access to the welfare safety net by their family’s immigration status, get guaranteed access to one hot, freshly-cooked and nutritionally balanced meal a day”.

“At a time when the cost of living is rising rapidly, this decision could not come at a better time for many of the families we work with.”

But she said the government must “urgently clarify whether children in families with insecure immigration status…will also benefit from this measure.”
.

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A premium on execution: Meet Debasish Panda, chairman of Irdai

A premium on execution: Meet Debasish Panda, chairman of Irdai


When the Covid-19 pandemic ravaged India, insurance companies were delaying and even denying claims, including cashless health insurance ones. The government stepped in, and asked them to clear claim settlements under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Package (PMGKP) Insurance Scheme for health workers, as well as the Centre’s flagship insurance schemes, Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana (PMJJBY) and Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana (PMSBY). The bureaucrat leading these consultations with the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) was Debasish …

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Insurers and COVID-19 Tests

Insurers and COVID-19 Tests

Coverage requirements may result in premium hikes next year, say some health plan executives.The Biden administration had a good plan. But giving health insurers five days to execute that plan has led to problems for payers, pharmacies and consumers.On Jan. 10, the administration instructed health insurers to cover the costs for every plan member to obtain eight FDA-approvedat-home COVID-19 tests at retail pharmacies or online each month.Insurers were told to implement the plan by Jan. 15. For insurers, five days was not enough time, says Eileen Wood, chief pharmacy officer for CDPHP, a nonprofit health plan in Albany, New York.The HHS rule calls for health plans to allow members to get those tests for free or the insurers need to set up systems to reimburse members as much as $12 per test for eight tests per member per month. When buying the tests, members do not need a physician’s prescription, nor do they need to have symptoms.Some pharmacies have not had the tests in stock. Even those that do have not always followed the protocols that insurers set up. “We have to do more communications with our retail pharmacy partners, but so far it’s not been easy,” says Wood.For CDPHP members to get the tests without cost at pharmacies, the pharmacies have told CDPHP that their systems require store staff to enter a prescriber’s name and National Provider Identification number, Wood explains. Without a prescription, some pharmacies have required CDPHP members to pay at the point of sale or the pharmacies need to enter the pharmacist’s name as the prescribing provider, she adds. Communicating the details that the tests should be free to health plan members to each pharmacy in 29 counties is a challenge, she notes. In addition to the start-up frustrations, the cost of providing eight tests per month at $12 apiece for each of the health plan’s 400,000 members for an entire year could total more than $460 million, an amount equal to about 25% of the plan’s annual premium revenue, she notes.Chris Kastman, M.D., the chief medical officer at Group Health Cooperative of South Central Wisconsin in Madison, also was worries about how much the new rule could boost premiums next year. “Even the most modest estimates call for what probably will be a 2% increase in premiums next year,” he says. “But those costs could be much, much higher depending on how it goes this year.”Kastman and Wood say that establishing the payment systems has been a struggle. “Most health plans will piggyback off of their existing pharmacy network, which sounds easy,” Kastman explains. “But then you realize that our pharmacy benefit manager and the company that manages our pharmacy claims need to set up new workflows for all of their health plan clients all at once.” Kastman adds: “We set up everything we could and then watched with dismay how the people we work with, even with the best of intentions, just couldn’t quite get all the pieces in place in such a short time.”Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) researchers reviewed the COVID-19 test policies that 13 large U.S. health insurers had posted online in January. Six had established a direct-coverage option in which members can get rapid at-home tests without paying up front or having to file a claim if the member buys the test at a preferred network of pharmacies or from a mail-order pharmacy, KFF said. By allowing the direct-coverage option, HHS provided an incentive for insurers to simplify coverage for consumers and to contain insurers’ costs somewhat by putting a limit of $12 on what they must pay for the tests. After the KFF report came out in January, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota established a direct-coverage option and other insurers may follow suit. .