5 months ago
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Accusing the Central authorities of weakening the Ex-Servicemen Contributory Health Scheme (ECHS) done fund cuts and administrative curbs, the Congress connected Thursday (January 1, 2026) announced a nationwide “Save ECHS” run to item pending aesculapian bills of ex-servicemen and disruptions successful aesculapian attraction they face.
Colonel (retd.) Rohit Chaudhry, president of the AICC Ex-Servicemen Department, said ex-servicemen would commencement an agitation successful the nationalist superior unless the authorities released ₹14,000 crore for ECHS by January 30.
The strategy covers astir 72 lakh beneficiaries, but aesculapian bills of much than 20 lakh ex-servicemen were pending, with outstanding dues exceeding ₹9,000 crore, helium said.
As portion of the month-long campaign, the Congress would scope retired to implicit 400 ECHS polyclinics crossed the state to stitchery information connected unpaid bills and measure operational challenges connected the ground, Mr. Chaudhry said astatine a property conference.
He said the strategy needed ₹13,500 crore successful 2023-24 but got an allocation of ₹9,831 crore, contempt an existing backlog of ₹3,500 crore. The backlog roseate to ₹5,400 crore successful 2024-25 and has touched astir ₹6,000 crore successful the existent fiscal year, forcing respective empanelled hospitals to halt providing attraction to ECHS beneficiaries, the Congress said.
Citing a Comptroller and Auditor General report, Mr. Chaudhry said that ECHS, launched successful 2003 arsenic a “cashless and capless” scheme, was facing a situation owed to money shortages, inadequate infrastructure and unit constraints. In practice, helium said, beneficiaries were often required to wage for attraction and subsequently question reimbursements that were capped and delayed for months.
He alleged that the administrative powers of the managing manager of ECHS had been curtailed by the Department of Ex-Servicemen Welfare, affecting the scheme’s quality to instrumentality enactment against defaulting hospitals.
The Congress demanded clearance of each pending bills immediately, restoration of ECHS’s administrative powers, and bringing the strategy nether the Chief of Defence Staff. It sought authorities mandating hospitals that received onshore astatine concessional rates to supply precedence attraction to ex-servicemen.
Mr. Chaudhry said the enactment would rise the contented successful Parliament and done nationalist mobilisation if the authorities failed to respond wrong the stipulated timeframe.
