RSBY's Big IT Deal

The Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) is one of those unsung Government successes. This low-cost, IT-enabled insurance solution for the poor is now being implemented in 25 states and has covered almost 80 million individuals, with the target being 300 million by 2013. Some 6,000 hospitals are already empanelled. Interestingly, each insurance company ran its own database. The RSBY woke up to the need for a centralised database and created the concept of Central Data Management Agency (CDMA). But the CDMA contract, which will be worth hundreds of crores at the least, has been up since December last year with no decision as yet.