PRIME Minister Imran Khan on Wednesday formally launched Naya Pakistan Card initiative, bringing mega welfare programs of his government covering health, education, food and agriculture sectors under one umbrella.
With the launch of this initiative, which covers Ehsaas Ration Programme based on a food subsidy package for low-income families, Kisan Card, Sehat Card and scholarships for students, beneficiaries of various initiatives can avail all services on the same card.
This indeed is yet another important step towards facilitating the people through the use of technology and data.
There is no denying that all these welfare programs are gradually bringing a change in the life of common man and this change will become more apparent and visible with the passage of time.
Especially the health insurance has provided a lot of solace to the poor and low middle income groups which earlier could not availed medical treatment of major diseases. Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government really deserves appreciation for covering the whole population and now Punjab government is also replicating the same.
The medical treatment really had become gone beyond the reach of common man but this unique initiative will now make them care free on this end.
Those who have availed the health facility can be seen greatly commending the government which also needs to launch an awareness campaign to apprise the people about the benefits of this scheme.
Having said so, it is important to continue to bring more improvements in this scheme. At present, the people can use the health card only for the indoor treatment which needs to be expanded for the outdoor treatment also.
Especially as the medicines are getting costlier, at least the low income groups registered with Ehsaas should be provided with medicines on subsidized rates.
And then, the government must lay great emphasis on bringing improvement in the public sector hospitals in order to attract the maximum number of health card recipients to these hospitals rather than the private ones. This will help make the insurance scheme more sustainable.
If the health services were not improved in government hospitals, then the recipients of cards will definitely go to the private hospitals which will only increase the medical bill of respective provincial governments.
