The Arogyasri cards were issued by late YS Rajasekhara Reddy and at the time despite its immense popularity, the TDP had constantly criticized the scheme calling it anti-poor.
It said the scheme benefited the corporate hospitals more than people in need of affordable, good health care.
Now, the very party which is ruling in Andhra Pradesh has decided to continue the scheme. In fact, it hasn’t made any changes to the past programme and it will continue whatever was already in process.
Of course, the only change that they made to the programme is that instead of calling it ‘Rajiv Arogyasri’, they will now call it ‘NTR Arogyaseva’. And though there is criticism from various quarters regarding the name change and carrying forward a Congress government’s programme, the TDP leaders have conveniently turned a deaf ear to such remarks.
Recently, the TDP government released the logo for its ‘NTR Arogyaseva’ programme. To make sure that all card holders have new logos on their cards, new cards are being issued by TDP. Now, the new cards will have a picture of Chandra Babu Naidu on them.
The old cards carried a picture of late Rajiv Gandhi and had Arogyasri written on them. But the new cards will not have NTR’s picture. Instead, Chandra Babu has decided to get his picture printed on the cards to etch on the minds of people that it is he who is giving them primary health care benefits.
