Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday rolled out the Centre’s flagship scheme — Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Abhiyaan, also known as Ayushman Bharat or the National Health Protection Mission (AB-NHPM).
“This is the world’s largest health scheme which will serve a population that equals 27-28 European countries. The beneficiaries are almost equal to the population of Canada, Mexico and US put together”, said PM Modi.
The government-sponsored health insurance scheme will provide free coverage of up to ₹5 lakh a family a year in any government or even empanelled private hospitals all over India. Meant to help the poor and the economically deprived, the scheme will be available for 10.74 crore beneficiary families and about 50 crore Indian citizens.
“This is an opportunity to serve poor people”, he added further.
Addressing a mammoth crowd at Prabhat Tara ground in Ranchi, the Prime Minister further said that this scheme would be a role model for all future health schemes around the world.
“This scheme will strengthen our health service in the country. Fifty crore people will benefit from this scheme. 13,000 hospitals in the country have been coordinated.”, he said.
“I’ve lived in poverty and I have seen the self-respect of poor people as well. Through this scheme we’ve caught the genesis of poverty and focused on empowerment of poor people”, he said further explaining the benefits of the scheme.
“Those who won medals in Asian games recently were from remote villages, poor families. We have to identify poor people and give them the opportunity to excel in life”, Mr. Modi said.
“If the previous governments who had governed in the name of poor people and looted the government fund would have put focus on poor people, such a situation would not have come. We have junked vote bank politics as our motto has been sabka saath, sabka vikas ”, he added.
The Prime Minister also laucnhed a toll free number 14555 for people to get more information about Ayushma Bharat scheme.
Published - September 23, 2018 02:02 pm IST
