Amaravati, Jul 1 (IANS): Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, on Thursday, launched YSR Bima with new guidelines, a welfare insurance scheme, allocating Rs 750 crore for the year 2021-22.

Under YSR Bima, the state government will directly pay the insurance amount to the kin of the eligible deceased person.

YSR Bima is aimed at coming to the aid of families who lost a bread winner.

"Under the scheme, an insurance amount of Rs 1 lakh will be paid if the beneficiary aged between 18 to 50 years, who is a breadwinner of the family, succumbs to natural death," said an official.

In the event of an accidental death in the age bracket of 18-70 years, the beneficiary's family will receive an insurance sum of Rs 5 lakh.

The insurance scheme will support 1.32 lakh families in the current fiscal where the government has spent up to Rs 1,307 crore in the past two years.

Reddy said the state government has prioritized public healthcare and soon after forming the government in 2019, annual income limit for Aarogyasri has been fixed at Rs 5 lakh, including raising the number of eligible medical procedures to 2,450.

According to the chief minister, the union government had withdrawn from the insurance scheme from April 2020 for which it was earlier paying 50 per cent premium.

"After the Centre's withdrawal, the entire premium was paid by the state on humanitarian grounds to provide security to families in need," he said.

However, the Centre has inserted more clauses such as closing the existing group insurance system and making a bank account mandatory for every person in the family.

The Centre also added a clause according to which if a breadwinner dies within 45 days of opening the bank account, the insurance will not be paid.

As a lot of chaos was emerging with regard to opening bank accounts and others, leading to the government taking upon itself the entire responsibility of the scheme, including clearing claims within one month of receiving the application.

"The responsibility for screening of insurance applications has been given to village and ward secretariats and will be monitored by the joint collectors. Any eligible person who was left out from YSR Bima can call toll free number 155214 for getting registered or to resolve their issues," the CM added.