CHAHAL’S BOYS RISK IT WITH NO COVER
Mumbai: More than 1.1 lakh employees of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) effectively lost their health insurance cover—hitherto provided under United India Insurance Co.’s Medical Group Insurance Scheme—in August 2017, when the civic body moved its healthcare focus to individual employees (barring contract workers).
According to advocate Prakash Devdas, president of the workers’ union, the firm had provided medical group insurance to civic workers for two years—2015-16 and 2016-17—but suddenly “discontinued the scheme after negotiations for the next fiscal year broke down”.
“The company claimed that they spent more in terms of outgoes towards insurance claims than the revenue they earned through annual premium collection per civic employee covered under the scheme,” he said.
“It is surprising that despite paying (premiums) for more than a lakh employees, BMC was unable to provide a better rate of return for the insurance company vis-à-vis the claims sanctioned. It is not as if all the 1,10,000 civic workers may have filed claims in any given year,” a senior civic official told First India. This person asked not to be named for fear of blowback.
It’s been five years, but the BMC has not introduced any fresh group medical insurance scheme.
The official indicated a possible “nexus” (read: kickbacks being sought from the private insurer) as the stumbling block for the renewal of the group medical insurance since August 2017.
Instead, workers are offered the option of individual insurance cover, with a sum cash payout of up to Rs15,000 a year, in keeping with notifications issued on September 18, 2019, June 25, 2020, and February 23, 2021.
But doesn’t seem to be helping much.
A spokesperson of the Mahapalika Arogya-Se-va Karmachari Sanghatana, Mumbai, (affiliated to the Mumbai Mahanagarpalika Karmachari Mahasangh) says: “Being less educated, many employees did not opt for the individual medical cover. So, they’ve lost out on the medical cover afforded to them and have also had to pay for medical expenses themselves.”
