State govt to provide free dentures to senior citizens with BPL cards

The poor senior citizens in Karnataka now have reason to smile. The State Government has decided to provide free dentures to the senior citizens with complete tooth loss from November third week. Announcing this at a press conference in Bangalore on Thursday, Health and Family Welfare Minister U. T. Khader said the government would launch ‘Danta Bhagya’ scheme to provide such free dentures to poor people for the first time in the country. He said the government had involved 45 dental colleges in the State to implement the Danta Bhagya scheme. They would provide free dentures to the needy senior citizens after verifying their Below Poverty Line ration cards and documents related to age-proof, he noted. The main condition was that those trying to enrol under this scheme should have lost all their teeth, he said. The Asha workers had been given the responsibility of identifying such needy senior citizens and linking them with the dental colleges for getting free dentures. Such health workers would be paid an incentive of Rs. 100 per patient, the minister said. Dr. Ganesh Shenoy Panchmal, who is the chairperson of the Government’s Oral Health Policy Committee which is also monitoring the implementation of the Danta Bhagaya scheme, explained that normally the private dentists would charge Rs. 8,000 to 20,000 for providing dentures. Of this a minimum of Rs. 1,500 was towards the charges of technician while the remaining charges would include that of infrastructure costs and profits. However, the dental colleges had agreed to provide free manpower by deploying their post-graduate students to attend to senior citizens. Similarly they would also not charge for the use of their infrastructure. The government would only provide the actual cost of dentures which would be Rs. 500, he said. -The Hindu