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NT Bureau
Chennai, July 29:
 

Union Finance Minister P Chidamabaram at the launch of health insurance scheme for transgenders in Chennai yesterday.

        Transgender community have equal rights like other citizens and they should come out of inferiority complex, Union Finance Minister P Chidamabaram has said.

        Launching health insurance programme, a first of its kinds for marginalise women and transgenders, organised by the Tamilnadu AIDS Initiative- Voluntary Health Services (TAI-VHS) here yesterday, the Finance Minister said people should treat transgenders and marginalised communities with dignity and should not isolate them as they are the children of mother India, Chidambaram lauded the services of TAI and VimoSEWA, a non-governmental organisation for its various preventive programmes.

        Explaining about the insurance programme, TAI project director R Lakshmibai said that TAI had initiated the insurance scheme as a pilot project in Salem and around 1,000 marginalised women including 350 transgenders were covered under the scheme.

        She further said a premium amount of Rs 281 had to be paid monthly and insurance coverage would be provided to the tune of Rs 5,000 by ICICI Lombard.

        Earlier, the Finance Minister handed over the cheque for Rs 2,96,077 which was collected as premium from the marginalised women and transgenders to VimoSEVA. He also released a short film of TAI titled 'Aakam 50', which explains about 50 innovative initiatives carried out by TAI.

        Speaking on the occasion, State Health and Family Welfare Secretary V K Subburaj said last year, around Rs 100 crore had been spent for AIDS prevention programmes. He said due to various prevention measures HIV/AIDS incidence in the State had come down from 1.13 per cent in 2001 to less than .5 per cent in 2006. 'We have 19 Anti Retroviral Therapy (ART) centres in the State', he informed. Voluntary Health Service Centre Secretary N S Murali also spoke on the occasion.