In an an attempt to ease the financial burden on students meeting with accidents, the State government has decided to provide them with an insurance cover under the 'Rajiv Gandhi Student Accident ex-Gratia Grant Scheme', instead of taking the help of insurance companies, a Government Resolution (GR) issued recently stated.

Under this scheme, families of students who lose their lives in an accident will get Rs 75,000. If the student loses two limbs in an accident and suffers permanent disability, he or she will get Rs 50,000. A student who loses one limb will get Rs 30,000. The students or their families do not have to pay premiums as the government will bear that cost.

The State government had started the insurance scheme for school students from 2003. However, the poor service reportedly given by insurance companies was brought to the notice of the State government, which then decided to scrap the scheme.

Over the last two years, instead of implementing the scheme with the help of insurance companies, the State government decided to run it on its own, on a pilot basis. Under this programme, the State government has settled claims amounting to Rs 2.72 crore for 403 students in 2011-12 and Rs 2.38 crore for 329 students in 2012-13.

As the scheme got a good response and students were getting almost the entire claim amount, there was a demand to implement it permanently.

Agreeing to this demand, the State Education Department decided to implement the 'Rajiv Gandhi Student Accident Ex-gratia Grant Scheme' permanently from this year and issued a circular in this regard recently to all departments concerned, including municipal corporations and zilla parishads in the State. A committee headed by the district collector will take the final decision on claims and approve the amount after verifying all documents, including the first information report (FIR).