The borough offices of Kolkata Municipal Corporation will accept Ayushman Bharat forms even after the Jan Kalyan Shivir camps end on Wednesday.
The clarification comes amid confusion among applicants over the enrolment process and eligibility criteria.
Sources in the KMC, which is organising the camps, said all residents aged above 70 would be enrolled under Ayushman Bharat without any additional eligibility checks. For those below 70, several eligibility conditions apply.
“Tens of thousands of people are queuing up at the camps, but they do not need to panic. They can visit the office of the borough executive health officer later and submit the forms,” a KMC official said.
The three-day Jan Kalyan Shivir began on Monday and ends on Wednesday.
Many applicants were also unsure whether state government officials would visit the homes of all Swasthya Sathi beneficiaries to facilitate their migration to Ayushman Bharat or whether beneficiaries themselves needed to submit forms.
“I stood in the queue for 40 minutes before an official announced that those with Swasthya Sathi cards did not need to collect and submit forms. We were told that the government would send employees to all households covered under Swasthya Sathi,” said an 80-year-old man at the Borough XII camp in Kasba.
KMC sources said around 8.5 lakh families in Calcutta are covered under Swasthya Sathi. The scheme’s website says it covers more than 2.42 crore families across Bengal.
A man in his 40s questioned how long it would take the government to reach such a large number of beneficiaries.
“We have already published more than 6 crore forms with pre-filled information. The ASHA workers will visit these homes and verify the credentials of these people,” said a state government official
“We are asking people for their Aadhaar numbers, checking it on a software and then telling them whether they need to fill the forms freshly or not.”
KMC sources said Swasthya Sathi was a universal health insurance, and there was no gatekeeping for the scheme. Ayushman Bharat has many conditions for one to become eligible for it.
A man in his 50s who wanted to enrol his mother, who is above 70, was not sure if he would get the forms even after the camps ended. “Will I be able to take the form after Wednesday?” he asked.
Long queues to pick up the forms were noticed in all the camps in Calcutta.