Karunya Benevolent Fund is an assurance scheme of the State Government which provides financial aid for poor people suffering from serious ailments, by raising funds through Kerala lottery. The scheme is managed by the State Lotteries Department (Taxes). Karunya Benevolent Fund is providing financial assistance to under-privileged people suffering from acute ailments like Cancer, Haemophilia, Kidney and Heart diseases and for Palliative Care. The amount for the health scheme is raised through lottery. This welfare measure is helpful to those who suffer from ailments, the cost of treatment of which are proved to be unbearable to lower and even middle strata of society with an annual family income of less than Rs.3 lakhs.

• Eligible beneficiary can approach any KASP empaneled hospitals for availing cashless treatment
• Significant increase in number of health care providers under KBF scheme.
• Number of treatment packages also increase
• IT integration enhances patient friendly approaches in KBF scheme

 

Comparison between Old KBF (Taxes) and revamped KASP-KBF (H&FWD)

Scheme	Old KBF	KBF- after integration with PMJAY portal
Beneficiary application process	Application to be submitted to the District Lottery Officer of the patient district with the photos, ration card copy and family photo in front of the house. Only after getting the approval, the eligibility will be confirmed for treatment benefits.	Application can be directly submitted at the KASP hospitals and patients need to provide only the Ration card with the income proof and all the processing will be done through an IT integrated system
Benefits	Tertiary care (Rs. 2 lakhs), Kidney ailments (Rs. 3 lakhs), Medicines for the Kidney patients, Haemophilia patients – unlimited.   315 packages	Secondary and Tertiary care as per the KASP packages. 1667 procedures under 26 specialties. All the packages include the hospitalization charges/day care sitting charges including the medicines for 15 days post discharge. Haemophilia patients are also taken care under the scheme.
Most utilized package and rate	Haemodialysis – Rs. 650 per session	Haemodialysis – Rs. 900 per session
IT integration	Mostly manual process with data entry into the portal after the application processing. Multiple touch points for beneficiaries to get the application processed.	New IT integration with National Health Authority portal, entire process will be digitalized and patients will have minimal waiting period with paperless cashless treatment benefits. Also, Hospitals can raise the claims online and get the amount credited in the registered account within a defined timeline.
Hospitals Empaneled	57 Hospitals and 26 dialysis centers	597 Hospitals –  203 Public and 594 Private hospitals

 

Major procedures done under KBF as follows

Procedure	No. of claims	Claimed amount(Rs)
Dialysis	237986	70,32,87,938
Chemotherapy	83216	1,15,52,91,435
PTCA, inclusive of diagnostic angiogram	16525	1,51,78,93,826

KBF Statistics (upto November 2025)

Hospital District	No. of beneficiaries	No. of claims	Claimed amount(Rs)
ALAPPUZHA	529	8469	10,25,87,618
ERNAKULAM	6092	33407	54,98,71,838
IDUKKI	272	6471	7,79,94,579
KANNUR	20719	87455	1,21,37,06,141
KASARAGOD	959	18754	35,95,16,283
KOLLAM	1114	15864	25,44,72,199
KOTTAYAM	3338	12392	19,33,03,958
KOZHIKODE	17466	63875	78,10,35,004
MALAPPURAM	4028	67943	84,92,34,424
PALAKKAD	1636	21589	30,29,14,029
PATHANAMTHITTA	697	11379	11,24,53,626
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM	12743	28360	55,01,86,417
THRISSUR	5435	37809	49,00,22,373
WAYANAD	745	14913	9,60,56,921
TOTAL	75773	428680	5,93,33,55,407