Biocon Foundation and Narayana Hrudayalaya Hospital in partnership with Ujjivan Financial Services has launched the Arogya Raksha Yojana Clinic in Bangalore. The Clinic, which is a part of the Arogya Raksha Yojana Health Micro Insurance Scheme will provide free outpatient consulting and low cost generic medicines from the Hrudayalaya Pharmacy; lab testing and preventive health education workshops for Ujjivan customers under the ARY Program. This is the first of the three clinics planned to be open in Bangalore serving Ujjivan's urban poor micro finance customers.

Arogya Raksha Yojana is a health micro insurance scheme designed to provide quality healthcare at affordable rates to under served communities in rural and urban areas. The scheme was launched in February 2005 by Biocon Foundation and Narayana Hrudayalaya Hospital (Arogya Raksha Yojana Trust) in collaboration with ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company. The scheme which is now being launched in Bangalore City slums which will provide health care and insurance for Ujjivan's micro finance customers in Viveknagar and Jakkasandra.

The ARY Scheme provides a range of services, including free consultation services at Arogya Raksha Yojana Clinics and network hospitals; generic drugs and diagnostics at discounted rates; admission for medical treatment and free surgical interventions. Members who enrol with this scheme pay an annual premium which ranges from Rs 120 to Rs 180 per person, depending on the number of family members who join the scheme. In its third year of operation, the scheme currently has close to 70,000 members spread across Anekal, Chikkballapur, Mysore, Bagalkot, Tumkur, Hubli.

In order to make the services more accessible to ARY members Biocon Foundation has set up clinics in those areas where access to the network hospitals is difficult. Each clinic has a doctor who provides free consultation for members; a pharmacy, which sells, discounted generic drugs and a lab which does basic diagnostic tests at subsidized rates. Five such clinics are in operation in Anekal, Chikkballapur, Bagalkot, Kanakapura Town and Kodihalli (Kanakapura Taluk).

Dr Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, CMD, Biocon Limited, said, "With India's huge disease burden, there is a pressing need for healthcare to be made affordable to the masses. With the setting up of Arogya Raksha Yogana Clinic's, we aim to provide the urban poor with high quality medicine at discounted prices. This project aims to provide affordable healthcare to one billion Indians. "