Centre's plan to make CGHS registration online in limbo
New Delhi: The fate of Health Ministry's plan to do away with the offline registration process for registration/renewal of Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS) beneficiary cards has hanged in the balance due to non-linking of Aadhaar number with beneficiaries' health card.
According to a senior official, the proposal is still at the review stage as chances of counterfeiting any document are much higher in online procedure than the physical way of papers submission and verification.
"Given the limited options of vetting out fake documents submitted during the online process, the ministry is doubtful of the misuse of the digital platform by beneficiaries mainly under the pensioner category," the official said, adding that Aadhaar linking may prove to be a solution to duplicity problem as the unique identification number cannot be 'modified'.
"There ministry is mainly worried about the chances of fudging documents for pensioner cards as the kind of healthcare facilities being provided by CGHS to pensioners is much more than any other scheme. They get free services by paying the annual fee of about Rs 1 lakh," the official said.
"The ministry cannot make it 'must' for the beneficiaries to link their Aadhaar numbers as there is a judgement of Supreme Court in this regard. We can just appeal to them. Once the Aadhaar linking process gets completed, it would be rolled out," the official said, adding that online CGHS card porting facility is available for the beneficiaries.
The certificates that need to be submitted for getting CGHS card under pensioner category include proof of residence, attested copy of surrender certificate of CGHS card while in service, etc.
However, the CHGS rules make it very clear that if any information provided by the beneficiary found to be wrong or fudged, the facilities would be withdrawn and action would be taken.
Notably, the Health Ministry had also inked a MoU with Bank of Baroda for the payment gateway. The charges for availing online facilities would range from Rs 15-Rs 20.
