In a change of stance, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government on Monday announced that it would be implementing the Central government’s Ayushman Bharat — Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana here to provide ₹5 lakh health insurance cover to families per year, after having opposed it for several months.
Faces flak
AAP had faced flak from the BJP over this point on several occasions, with senior party leaders stressing on this point during the campaign to the assembly elections. With various leaders such as BJP MP Manoj Tiwari attacking the Delhi government for denying benefits of the scheme to the residents of Delhi. The scheme targets poor households to help meet their health expenses.
Commenting on this, BJP media in-charge Pratyush Kanth said that the Kejriwal government shouldn’t have waited for this calamity to strike for implementing the scheme. Mr. Kanth had earlier submitted a petition before the High Court, calling for the implementation of the scheme here, he said.
Apart from this, in the health sector, Finance Minister Manish Sisodia announced that a provision of ₹50 crore was being made to help fight spread of COVID-19 pandemic.
He also announced an outlay of ₹365 crore to increase the number of mohalla clinics from 451 currently to up to 1,000. Through upgrading, expansion and construction of new hospitals, the government also plans to help increase the bed capacity at hospitals from 10,000 beds currently to up to 26,000 beds. An outlay of ₹724 crore has been proposed for the same.
In the outcome budget put out by the government, of a total of 743 critical indicators were applied to measure the progress of about 56 schemes under the health department. While only a few ‘major indicators’ have been specified in the report, it claims that out of these, 77% of the indicators were on track, while 20% were off track and three percent were not applicable.
