The Himachal Pradesh government on Saturday approved additional health insurance cover for senior citizens to provide easy access to curative geriatric healthcare services.

This would provide an additional coverage of Rs 30,000 to those enrolled under the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY), a government spokesperson told IANS.He said the cabinet, presided over by Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, took a decision in this regard.The spokesperson said each beneficiary under the Senior Citizen Health Insurance Scheme would get cashless treatment in any of the RSBY-empanelled hospitals.At present, there are 1,30,587 senior citizens enrolled under RSBY in the state.

Meanwhile, in a relief to hydropower companies, the cabinet gave its approval to reduce the capacity addition charges from Rs 20 lakh to Rs 1 lakh per MW or the upfront premium quoted, whichever is higher for those projects whose installed capacity after capacity enhancement is more than 5 MW.The spokesperson said this provision would be applicable only to those projects where revised capacity agreements for enhancement of capacity have not been signed and for all projects which will go in for capacity enhancement after the notification of this provision.To help the small hydro producers, the cabinet decided that the state electricity board would buy power from the projects up to 100 KW capacity and the royalty rates for these projects will be two per cent for the first 12 years, 12 per cent from 13 to 30 years and 18 per cent from 31 to 40 years.