Health Minister JP Nadda on Tuesday informed that more than 8.5 crore treatments have been taken by the beneficiaries under Ayushman Bharat – Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY) as on 31 January 2025.
While answering to a question in Rajya Sabha, Nadda said that approximately 4.2 crore and 4.3 crore treatments were undertaken in public and private hospitals respectively.
“AB-PMJAY is a flagship scheme of the Government which provides health cover of Rs. 5 lakh per family per year for secondary and tertiary care hospitalization to approximately 55 crore beneficiaries corresponding to 12.37 crore families constituting economically vulnerable bottom 40% of India’s population. Recently, the scheme has been expanded to cover 6 crore senior citizens of age 70 years and above belonging to 4.5 crore families irrespective of their socio-economic status under AB-PMJAY with Vay Vandana card,” Nadda told parliament.
All States/UTs across the country have on-boarded the scheme except for West Bengal and NCT of Delhi, he said.
Under the scheme, in-patient healthcare services are delivered through public and private empanelled hospitals at secondary and tertiary level. The scheme is implemented across the country through a three-tier modelNational Health Authority (NHA), State Health Agencies (SHAs) and District Implementation Units (DIUs) at National, State and district levels respectively.
“For effective implementation of the scheme at State level, State Governments have set up SHAs. This entity is the nodal agency responsible for the implementation of AB-PMJAY in the State and is headed by a Chief Executive Officer. The CEO, SHA, is appointed by the State Government. The SHA can hire additional staff or an Insurance Company or an Implementation Support Agency (ISA) to perform required tasks for implementation of the scheme. The States/UTs have been provided with the flexibility to implement the scheme in the operational model best suited to the local conditions,” Nadda said.
Accordingly, AB-PMJAY is implemented in Trust Mode, Insurance mode and Mixed (Hybrid) mode. Currently, 25 States/UTs are implementing the scheme in trust mode, 7 States/UTs in insurance mode and 2 States in hybrid mode.
“AB-PMJAY currently provides free healthcare access up to Rs. 5 lakh per family per year for secondary and tertiary care hospitalization in 27 different medical specialties. Expansion in treatment is done by inclusion of new procedures, empanelment of new hospitals, inclusion of new beneficiaries and other improvements as per requirements from time to time,” the health minister said.