The Arima Farms, an Indian investment group operating in the country, has registered some 180 aged persons in Yapei in the Central Gonja District under the National Health insurance Scheme.

The registration of the aged onto the NHIS is part of the group’s cooperate social responsibility to help members of the communities in which they operate to transform their lives.

Mr K. C. Ezhilarasan, Group Chairman of Arima Farms, said the registration of the aged onto the NHIS had become necessary because a woman died in the area due to her inability to access healthcare without health insurance.

He said the health of people in communities that Arima Farms is operating was one of their priority and that Arima would do everything within its means to register more aged people onto the NHIS to able them access healthcare.

He said Arima Group was establishing large tracts of farms at Yapei known as, “The Arima Savanna Farms”.

He said an MOU had been signed with the University for Development Studies (UDS) in 2014 and that as part of the MOU, the university would develop the technical backup to enable Arima to establish the farms.

He said the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was currently assessing the area before granting them the approval to cultivate rice, maize and soya beans on the 17,000 acres of land that they had acquired.

Mr Ezhilarasan said Arima was also planning to train the local youth on rice farming to ensure that they increased productivity to improve their standard of living.

Mr Braimah Abdul Razak, Central Gonja District Manager of the NHIS, commended Arima for the initiative and appealed to other investors in the area to engage in cooperate social responsibility activities.

He said the district had 30,805 registered members out of which 12,000 had been captured on the biometric registration.

He appealed for the construction of a permanent office accommodation and an office vehicle to help in the administration of its activities to improve the system.