Shillong: Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma last week launched the Meghalaya Health Insurance Scheme(MHIS-IV) in convergence with that of the Centre's Ayushman Bharat scheme.

The MHIS-IV targets to cover more than 8 lakh households offering over 2300 medical and surgical packages and up to Rs 5 lakh per family.

The new scheme will be functional from February 1 next year, MHIS chief executive officer Pravin Bakshi said.

The Central scheme will benefit 3.47 lakh families and the MHIS-IV (converged with the PMJAY) will benefit all households except for government employees already availing a different health programme, Bakshi said.

"It was a tough decision (considering the financial implication the scheme will have) but we decided to move forward," Conrad said during the launch of the scheme at the Secretariat here.

He said it was an initiative of the previous government and the job of his government was to improve that scheme (MHIS-III).

It was stopped in October and launched in a new improved avatar, Health Minister A L Hek said.

"The Meghalaya Health Insurance scheme is truly a universal scheme and this state is setting the goals at the national level," Ayushman Bharat Mission CEO Indu Bhushan told PTI.

He said the flagship insurance scheme of the state covers all citizens in the state when the Ayushman Bharat targeted the bottom 40 per cent of lower income families.

Apart from increasing the benefit packages from 1395 packages in the PMJAY to 2365 health packages that include OPD and dental care among others, Indu said.