1.59Cr benefit from cashless treatments under Ayushman Bharat Yojana
By TIOL News Service
NEW DELHI, FEB 09, 2021: OVER 1.5 crore people have benefitted from the Centre's Ayushman Bharat healthcare scheme since its launch in September, 2018, said the Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Mr Ashwini Kumar Choubey on Tuesday.
In a written reply to the Rajya Sabha, Mr Choubey said as on February 4, there have been 1,58,85,194 hospital admissions worth Rs. 19,714 crore authorised through a network of 24,321 empanelled healthcare providers under the Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY).
At the time of its launch, the AB-PMJAY had been termed the biggest government-sponsored healthcare scheme in the world.
It provides health insurance cover of up to Rs. 5 lakh per year per family for secondary and tertiary healthcare hospitalisations.
"The beneficiary families under AB-PMJAY have been identified on the basis of select deprivation and occupational criteria in rural and urban areas respectively as per the Socio Economic and Caste Census 2011 database," said the minister.
The database covers approximately 10.74 crore families with 50 crore people.
Further, the government has allowed the implementing States and Union Territories (UTs) to run their own health protection scheme using the PMJAY hospital network and packages. The funding of the health scheme is shared between the Central and State governments.
This has extended the coverage of the scheme to 13.17 crore families with almost 65 crore people, Mr Choubey said.
Presently, Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana has been implemented in around 32 States and UTs across the country, with West Bengal initially implementing and then withdrawing from the scheme in the beginning of 2019.