Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday announced that his government will launch an ambitious healthcare scheme on September 25 this year which will benefit 500 million citizens of the country.
In his last Independence Day address from the ramparts of the Red Fort ahead of the next Lok Sabha election in 2019, he said the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Abhiyaan (Ayushman Bharat) will be launched on September 25 on the birth anniversary of Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay.
"The healthcare initiatives of the government will have a positive impact on 50 crore (500 million) Indians," he said.
"It is essential to ensure that we free the poor of India from the clutches of poverty due to which they cannot afford healthcare."
The ambitious Ayushman Bharat-National Health Protection Mission (AB-NHPM) aims to provide a coverage of Rs 500,000 per family annually, benefiting more than 100 million poor families.
The scheme aims to target poor, deprived rural families and identified occupational category of urban workers' families, 80.3 million in rural and 23.3 million in urban areas, as per the latest Socio Economic Caste Census (SECC) data, and will cover around 500 million people.
Asserting that technology will play a crucial role in the implementation of the programme, he said in four to six weeks, testing of these technology tools under the scheme will start.