Government committed to ensuring top quality, affordable healthcare for citizens: PM Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi who has embarked on a trip to the United States on Thursday, asserted that it is the government's commitment to guarantee the highest quality and affordable healthcare for its citizens. The PM made the comment in line with the completion of three years of the world largest health care scheme, the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana, which is also known as the Ayushman Bharat Scheme.

"The importance of healthcare has been even more clearly understood in the year gone by. It is our commitment to ensure top quality and affordable healthcare for our citizens. Ayushman PM-JAY is key to realising the vision," PM Narendra Modi said.

Scheme committed to the welfare of low-income groups

The Ayushman PM-JAY is a national public health insurance fund launched by the Government of India in September 2018 which aims to provide health care insurance of up to Rs 5 lakh to the low-income earners in the country. Roughly, the bottom 50 per cent of the country qualifies for the scheme. The scheme has catered to nearly two crore hospital admissions to date since its launch in 2018, Dr RS Sharma, CEO of the National Health Authority had said in August.

Meanwhile, Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Thursday informed that PM Modi will be launching a rollout of the Pradhan Mantri Digital Health Mission across the country on Monday under which a unique digital health ID will be provided to people which will encompass all their health records.

PM-JAY benefits people across the nation

In May 2020, PM Modi in his Mann Ki Baat radio broadcast said that the Ayushman Bharat Scheme had benefitted more than one crore citizens. The scheme by May 2020 had concluded more than one crore treatments with a value of Rs13,412 crore. The number of public and private hospitals empanelled across the country stands at 24,432. The Ayushman Bharat Yojana scheme announced a special collaboration with the Employees' State Insurance programme in November 2019. From June 2020, the programme had entered a pilot project to cover 120,000 workers with that insurance at 15 hospitals.

Notably, states and union territories in the country are liable to make their own choice about whether to participate in Ayushman Bharat Yojana. A total of 20states had committed to join the scheme when it was announced in February 2018.

Meanwhile, Former Minister of Law and Justice of India, Ravishankar Prasad and Minister for Road Transport & Highways Nitin Gadkari hailed PM Modi for launching the scheme that benefitted a huge underprivileged section of the country.

Image: PTI