West Bengal Health Minister Dr Sharadwat Mukherjee has claimed that 2.5 million to 3 million Swasthya Sathi cards have been flagged as fake, untraceable or suspect during an ongoing verification exercise, raising questions over public premium payments and the integrity of the state’s cashless health coverage system.
Mukherjee said on Friday that the discrepancies emerged as the government began verifying beneficiaries before facilitating their coverage under Ayushman Bharat and the state’s Mukhyamantri Swasthya Bima Yojana. Officials have been conducting door-to-door checks of beneficiary records, according to the minister, who said the exercise had raised doubts about whether a large number of listed beneficiaries existed.
The minister claimed that the state had been paying about Rs 30 crore a year in premiums linked to allegedly fake or non-existent cards. He described the figure as an initial finding and said the full scale of the suspected financial irregularities would become clearer after the ongoing audit and database examination.
“Only the opening batsman has come in, and we are already seeing corruption worth Rs 25-30 crore. The entire innings is yet to be played. This is not a T20 match, so it will take time. Gradually, you will see how much more information comes out,” Mukherjee said.
The allegations extend beyond beneficiary records, according to the minister. Mukherjee alleged that the verification had identified possible irregularities involving fake patients, doctors, signatures, hospitals, third-party assurance and information submitted at different stages of the insurance process. He did not provide a detailed breakdown of the suspected cases or identify the institutions allegedly involved in each category.
The state has begun a forensic audit of the alleged financial irregularities and is conducting a detailed examination of the Swasthya Sathi database, Mukherjee said. The audit is expected to examine how beneficiary records were created, how claims and hospital records were processed, and how premiums were paid for accounts that could not be established during verification.
Launched by then chief minister Mamata Banerjee on December 30, 2016, Swasthya Sathi became operational on February 1, 2017. The scheme provides cashless health cover of up to Rs 5 lakh a year for each family, with the state government bearing the premium. Any confirmed irregularity could therefore affect both the management of public funds and the reliability of beneficiary records used to deliver healthcare coverage.
Mukherjee also referred to suspected irregularities detected during verification under the Lakshmir Bhandar welfare scheme, but said the suspected scale in Swasthya Sathi was considerably larger. The government’s next steps are the completion of the forensic audit, continued door-to-door verification and further examination of the scheme’s records, according to the minister.
