Too Little, Too Late: Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana in Maharashtra

While the union government announced its plan to extend the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana to the unorganised working class poor like rickshaw-pullers, ragpickers, mineworkers, sanitation workers, etc, the Government of Maharashtra has decided to scrap RSBY and replace it with the Rajiv Gandhi Jeevandayee Arogya Yojana. This article analyses the conditions of waste pickers and argues not to pit one type of healthcare against another and not to scrap schemes like the RSBY that have come anyway too late.