BELONIA, July 19 (TIWN): To facilitate the poor residents with the facility of smart card launched by the government of India which provides quality health facilities to people in rural areas, is launched in 5 primary health centers of South district on Saturday.

Zilla parishaed sabhadipoti Himangshu Roy informed the matter through a press meet on Saturday at Forest Daak Bunglow.

The smart card scheme offers more choices to the poor and saves them from falling prey to corrupt practices of officials.

It is to be mentioned here that there are total of 26 PHCs in south district and so far the smart card facility is available in 10 different PHCs of the south district and on Saturday with another new initiative 5 more PHCs are added to the list of Smart card facility.

The newly added PHC includes Borpathori PHC, Nolua PHC, Kalachorra PHC, Koyifang PHC, and Rupaichori PHC.

This Smart card initiative is perhaps one of the largest mass health insurance programmes in the world. It effectively addresses the health concerns of those in the BPL category and also the poor, unorganized workers.

The RSBY smart card provides a health insurance amounting to Rs 50,000 per year to five members of every BPL family. This is done through smart cards, which, with a unique fingerprint identification system, make them practically foolproof, said Roy

Each smart card is pre-loaded with Rs 50,000, and contains digitized signatures of the head of family and the officer issuing the card. It also has details like addresses, names and photographs of the dependents. It is issued to the head the family, who selects three other members from his family, other than his spouse, to be included in the scheme.

Migratory worker can access health facilities even outside his own state, and his family can receive the benefits of the scheme at the same time, confirmed Roy.

He also said that in the coming days the rest of the 11 PHC among the 26 will also be provided with the facility of smart card.