Under the Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB PM-JAY), the Central government’s health insurance scheme, approximately 20.32 lakh COVID-19 tests and 7.08 lakh treatments were authorised from April 2020 to July 2021.
The total value of the tests and treatment stands at ₹2,794 crore, a senior official told The Hindu .
While several States have made testing and even treatment of COVID free, the cover allowed beneficiaries to avail free testing and treatment across all empanelled hospitals — both public and private.
“Besides this, State governments were provided with the flexibility of modifying the Ayushman packages as per the local requirements,” said the official.
‘Dynamic response’
The National Health Authority (NHA) is the nodal agency responsible for the nationwide roll-out and implementation of the AB PM-JAY scheme. It noted that the response towards COVID-19 has been dynamic, keeping pace with the spread of the disease. The prevalence of the disease has not followed a uniform pattern across States.
“All Ayushman beneficiaries are eligible,” said the NHA in a statement while explaining that NHA provided flexibility to States to deploy ways and means to ensure that beneficiaries avail free COVID testing and treatment under the scheme.
“The priority was to ensure that no beneficiary is denied entitlement to free testing and treatment under AB PM-JAY,” it added.
Many State governments decided to make COVID testing and treatment free under the scheme for all the residents. While some of them used Ayushman Bharat PM-JAY ecosystem including IT platform, others have also made it free but without recording the transaction on NHA’s IT platform, the Authority said.
₹23 cr package
Meanwhile, the Health Ministry on Friday noted that the Union Cabinet has approved a new scheme ‘India COVID-19 Emergency Response & Health System Preparedness Package: Phase-II (ECRP-II package)’ on July 8, 2021 amounting to ₹23,123 crore.
“To fast track the implementation of the ECRP-II, on July22 this year, ₹1,827.80 crore was released to the stakeholders as 15% advance to undertake preparatory activities. Further, 35% funds are being released on Friday to the States and Union Territories, thus, making a total of 50% release of funds so as to ensure implementation of critical activities at the State and District levels to prepare the public healthcare systems in response to the evolving pandemic,” said the release.
This scheme is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme with some Central Sector components. It aims to accelerate health system preparedness for immediate responsiveness for early prevention, detection and management, with a focus on health infrastructure development including for Paediatric Care and with measurable outcomes.
