The Good Earth

State cooperatives are nowadays busy listing farmers for Yeshasvini, the pioneering government-run health insurance scheme launched recently. A reported first in India, it will initially support 2.5 lakh farmers, who will have access to 30-odd hospitals for a monthly premium of just Rs 5. The farmers will even be covered for prohibitively costly treatments like heart surgeries etc. "We will provide health insurance to the thousands of farmers who are neglected," said chief minister S.M. Krishna. The project was launched along with the National Insurance Company and Narayana Hrudayalaya Foundation. Healthcare will also cross into remote regions through ‘tele-medicine’. Twenty-five district hospitals will be linked via the insat satellite.