Karnataka: Cabinet clears Sandhya Kiran cashless health scheme for pensioners

Bengaluru: The Karnataka Cabinet has approved the launch of “Sandhya Kiran”, a contributory cashless healthcare scheme for state government pensioners below 70 years, family pensioners and eligible dependants.

The scheme, framed under the Ayushman Bharat-Arogya Karnataka (AB-ArK) framework, will initially cover about 3.11 lakh pensioners and their eligible dependants, taking the total beneficiary base to around 4.93 lakh.

Under the scheme, eligible families will get cashless access to secondary, tertiary and emergency treatment up to Rs 5 lakh a year on a floater basis at empanelled hospitals. AB-ArK benefit packages and revised package rates will apply to the scheme.


Service pensioners will contribute 1.25% of their basic pension, while family pensioners will contribute 0.75% of their basic family pension.

The scheme is expected to collect around Rs 117 crore in annual premiums, against estimated annual treatment costs of Rs 81.75 crore. Under the AB-ArK funding model, 70% of treatment costs will be met from the beneficiary share and 30% by the state, translating into annual contributions of about Rs 57.22 crore and Rs 24.53 crore, respectively.

To maintain the scheme’s financial sustainability, the government has proposed an automatic increase of 0.05 percentage point in the premium rate if corpus utilisation exceeds 85%.

The government will implement the scheme through the Suvarna Arogya Suraksha Trust (SAST), with registration, premium collection, hospital empanelment, cashless treatment and claims management integrated with the AB-ArK system.