Cancer patients, suffering from stage III and IV of the disease, will now get a monthly pension of Rs 2500 for which a separate budgetary provision of Rs 68.42 Crore has been made by the state government.
An official spokesperson said earlier, in terms of giving monthly pension to cancer patients, Tripura was the only state in the country that has been giving monthly financial assistance of Rs.1000 to stage-III cancer patients.
He said to ensure that the actual beneficiaries get the scheme benefit, the income verification of such patients would be matched with Parivar Pehchan Patra (PPP). “The beneficiary will get the said benefits till they are alive. Documents verified by the committee of the Civil Surgeon Office will have to be uploaded through Saral Kendra. Applicants must bring ration card, voter card, pan card, passport, bank passbook, telephone, water, electricity or other utility bills with home address or land record documents/PPP to Saral Kendras for necessary verification. The ASHA worker or ANM will verify the survival certificate of the patient which will be countersigned by the health department,” the spokesperson added.
The financial assistance given to cancer victims from the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund was earlier approved by the CM Office. The concerned deputy commissioner then used to forward the matter to the CMO which was a time-consuming process.
“As soon as this matter came to the notice of the Chief Minister, he then had given directions to the deputy commissioner to issue this financial assistance amount at his own level. This amount of up to Rs One lakh is given at the district level as financial help to the patient,” the spokesperson said.
He said the Haryana government has now decided that if the patient is taking advantage of any other type of social security pension or old age pension scheme, then he will also continue to get an additional monthly pension of Rs 2500.
