Sanchari Roy

Gujarat, one of the richest states in India, was always at par or ahead of the rest of India during the 1980s, and unambiguously ahead in the 1990s. There is no evidence of any differential acceleration in the 2000s, when Narendra Modi has been in power, relative to the 1990s, both with respect to the country as a whole, as well as other major states. This is robust to using alternative measures of income (gross state domestic product or per capita income), alternative methods of computing growth rates, and keeping or dropping the year 2000-01, for which Gujarat had a negative growth rate following the Bhuj earthquake.

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Implementing Health Insurance: The Rollout of Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana in Karnataka

Vol. 46, Issue No. 20, 14 May, 2011

D Rajasekhar, Erlend Berg, Maitreesh Ghatak, R Manjula, Sanchari Roy

The National Health Insurance Scheme - Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana - aims to improve poor people's access to quality healthcare. This paper looks at the implementation of the scheme in Karnataka, drawing on a large survey of eligible households and interviews with empanelled hospitals in the state. Six months after initiation in early 2010, an impressive 85% of eligible households in the sample were aware of the scheme, and 68% had been enrolled. However, the scheme was hardly operational and utilisation was virtually zero. A large proportion of beneficiaries were yet to receive their cards, and many did not know how and where to obtain treatment under the scheme. Moreover, hospitals were not ready to treat RSBY patients. Surveyed hospitals complained of a lack of training and delays in the reimbursement of their expenses. Many were refusing to treat patients until the issues were resolved, and others were asking cardholders to pay cash. As is typical for the implementation of a government scheme, many of the problems can be related to a misalignment of incentives.

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Lal Jayawardena (1934-2004): A Colloquium in Remembrance

Vol. 40, Issue No. 20, 14 May, 2005

Lyn Squire, Partha Pratim Sahu, Priya Raghavan, Sanchari Roy

Many would perhaps not agree, but Lal Jayawardena believed in holding ideas loftier than narrow vested interests. It was his firm conviction that ultimately good would triumph over evil.