**Bhubaneswar:** As announced earlier, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik launched his government’s most ambitious universal health benefit scheme, ‘Biju Swasthya Kalyan Yojana’ ,from Independence Day today.
Under this scheme, health benefits to a tune of Rs 5 lakhs are provided to each beneficiary.
The CM later enhanced it to Rs 7 lakhs, exclusively for the women, responding instantly to the appeal made by a tribal woman of Malkangiri during a video conferencing with her recently.
The Biju Swasthya Kalyan Yojana will benefit more than 3.5 crore people of the State covering more than 70 lakh families.
The State Government has also announced a financial assistance of Rs 500 that will be provided to pregnant woman and infants for commuting between the public health facilities and their homes.
Notably, Biju Swasthya Kalyan Yojana is an assurance-based scheme in which the beneficiaries get financial assistance direct from the state government and not from any insurance company.
