Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY)15 Dec 2010

Two months have passed ever since the Centre decided to take in vendors among the beneficiaries of its cashless health insurance scheme — Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) — for persons living below poverty line (BPL).

Although the Union Ministry of Labour and Employment had asked the states about a month ago to begin the procedure of counting vendors into the scheme, Uttar Pradesh is facing a difficulty in identifying those who can be termed “street vendors”. On Thursday, the state government called its initial high-level meeting — headed by Chief Secretary Atul Kumar Gupta — to start preparing the action plan to include vendors in the proposal. Throughout the meeting, however, the officials realised that they do not accurately know who all can be included in such a list.

“The central government has asked us to take account of street vendors in the list as beneficiaries, but did not spell out the meaning of ‘street vendors’. The definition specified in the dictionary is too extensive and cannot be considered because it includes all kinds of vendors,” said a senior official. While the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation has defined urban street vendors as persons with either temporary static or mobile stalls, there are street vendors in rural areas as well — this definition also cannot be used here, the officer added.