Govt to roll out pan-India cashless treatment for road accident victims

The government of India is in the process of rolling out of a scheme in which road accident victims will get Rs 1.50 lakh cashless treatment. The treatment expense is limited to one person per accident. The government has launched such a scheme “to reduce fatalities due to road accidents in the counry”.

The government has included following conditions in the programme:

1. The accident must be caused by a motor vehicle on any type of road in the country.

2. The government authorities must be informed about the accident within seven days maximum from the accident date.

Whether, a person can avail of the services more than once under this scheme is unclear. The government has currently issued only a press release of the program without giving much information regarding procedure and salient features.

Generally, under any insurance policy with cashless treatment feature, upon hospitalisation, the medical care centre informs the insurance company and submits all the requisite information, forms and documents. The insurance company then provides the treatment cost to the hospital, the policyholder does not have to pay anything upfront. May be similar would be the procedure under the government’s to be launched road accident cashless treatment scheme.

1.68 lakh people died due to road accidents in 2022: MoRTH

Road accident death tally is continuously on the rise in the nation. As per latest data available with Ministry of Roads, Transport and Highways, 1.68 lakh road accident fatalities were reported in the year 2022. While, there were total of 4.61 lakh road accident in the same year.

Currently, the programme has been implemented in Chandigarh on pilot basis. On success of the scheme, it will be gradually rolled out in the entire nation. Some state governments have already launched such schemes in their respective states.