New Delhi: The Narendra Modi government has finally revealed some numbers on its flagship Ayushman Bharat health insurance scheme in response to a question asked in parliament this session.
In spite of having been popularised as the “world’s largest healthcare scheme” since 2018, data pertaining to the scheme has so far only been released in the form of tweets. The tweets have revealed details like the number of beneficiary cards released everyday, the number of hospitals on board and the total number of patients who have used the scheme.
So far, no disaggregated and detailed data on the kind of procedures that are happening and where they are happening had been made available.
275th Day of #AyushmanBharat #PMJAY
1,78,341 beneficiary e-cards generated, bringing the total to 3.88 Cr e-cards.
14,540 hospital admissions across the country bringing the total to >30.38 lakhs. #PMJAY24HrUpdatek
— National Health Authority (NHA) (@AyushmanNHA) June 26, 2019
According to this new data, Rs 3,077.5 crore worth of claims have been made for health insurance under the Ayushman Bharat or Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana scheme in the last 200 days or so.
Gujarat patients claim one-fifth of total
As much as Rs 641.5 crore, which amounts to almost one-fifth of the total, has been claimed by patients in Gujarat. Tamil Nadu has claimed the second highest amount of Rs 399 crore and Chhattisgarh, the third highest, at Rs 379 crore.
The scheme has been used the most in Chhattisgarh, which has seen the highest number of patients making claims under the scheme – five lakh. Gujarat boasts of the second highest number of patients, at 3.9 lakh. Kerala is third with 2.7 lakh and Tamil Nadu is fourth with 2.1 lakh patients.
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This means that the average amount of money being claimed by each patient in Gujarat is Rs 16,242. The amount in Chhattisgarh is Rs 7,469 per person. In Tamil Nadu and Kerala, this amounts are Rs 18,912 and Rs 5,468 respectively, per patient.
Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states have claimed a total of Rs 1,356 – less than half of the country’s total. States like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, despite being two of the most backward on health indicators, are not the biggest users of the scheme.
The information provided in Parliament, however, does not include data for the states of Delhi, Odisha, Puducherry, Punjab, Rajasthan and Telangana.
Rs 6,400 allotted in the interim budget
The Ayushman Bharat scheme was announced in 2018 and has promised an insurance coverage of Rs 5 lakh per family to 10 crore families. It also intends to convert 1.5 lakh sub-centres into “health and wellness centres.”
The Central and state governments have split payment towards the scheme in a 60:40 ratio except in the northeastern states and three Himalayan states where the ratio is 90:10. In Union Territories without a legislature, the Centre foots the entire insurance premium and in Union Territories with a legislature it is 60:40.
In the interim budget submitted by the National Democratic Alliance government before the general elections in 2019, Rs 6,400 crore was allotted to Ayushman Bharat, which was a big jump from the Rs 2,000 crore which was allotted in the 2018 budget.
Also read: Ayushman Bharat Gets Rs 6,400 Crore, But to Benefit Private Sector
The first full budget of the second term of the Modi government will be presented on July 5, and will reflect the government’s final decision on how much to allocate to the scheme.
With the scheme now showing claims of Rs 3,077 crore made in about 200 days of operation, and with a substantial share of this being borne by the state governments themselves, the central government looks poised to keep its expenses within the allocated amount of Rs 6,400 crore.