Unlimited Aasandha reaches its limit

The budget for the Aasandha healthcare insuarance policy reached its limit in November, according to the statistics published by the Finance Ministry.

The statistics showing the financial status of the state published by the Finance Ministry every week showed that the expenditure on Aasandha policy reached MVR 1.08 billion by last Thursday.

The healthcare program is now run from funds sourced from the special budget. The figure is a massive increase of MVR 84 million from the designated amount in the budget for 2019.

While the healthcare insurance policy budget reached its limit, the government did not hold back in extending the “Merana” insurance scheme for Maldivians living abroad to Malaysia. Other countries included in the scheme are India and Sri Lanka.

The budget for Aasandha is not the only budget that reached its limit. The government had designated MVR 142.1 million for government travel expenses which reached its limit and excessed to MVR 188.6 million. However, the government still has leftovers from the budget passed for 2019, due to some reduced expenses. The government has so far spent MVR 25.7 billion of the MVR 31.9 billion of the state budget for 2019.