There is little to cheer for the State in terms of Central assistance for its comprehensive health coverage scheme Arogya Sri notwithstanding the significant enhancement of budget for the Ayushman Bharat (Prime Minister’s Jan Arogya Yojana) in the interim budget presented in Parliament on Friday.
Telangana was one among the few States which opted out of the Ayushman Bharat scheme which came with several conditions restricting the coverage of the beneficiaries.
According to conservative estimates, the number of families covered under the Central government scheme would have been confined to 26.11 lakh, almost a third of the 77.19 lakh families being covered under Arogya Sri at present, had the State opted for the scheme. These families are being provide health coverage ranging between ₹ 2 lakh to ₹ 13 lakh involving budgetary allocation of ₹ 782.7 crore as against the maximum coverage of ₹ 5 lakh under the Ayushman Bharat which entailed allocation of around ₹ 264 crore.
In addition, almost 20 lakh families are being covered through Employees Health Scheme, ESI, Arogyabhadrata and other schemes with total budgetary allocation of close to ₹ 2,000 crore.
Illnesses covered
There is no clarity yet on the kind of illnesses that would be covered under the Ayushman Bharat while the State-supported health scheme is aimed at covering all ailments, including cancer and dialysis, irrespective of number of members in the family. Moreover, Arogya Sri is fully State funded scheme whereas Ayushman Bharat was designed with State’s share of 40 % of the total allocation.
Incidentally, the Central government had made extensive use of the Arogya Sri software and the State had provided the necessary technical inputs at the time of conception of Ayushman Bharat.
‘States ignored’
Officials are, however, sore that the Central government’s decisions were announced unilaterally in contravention of the assurances given by Prime Minister Narendra Modi that his Government would take all the major decisions with active participation of the States enhancing cooperative federalism.
The announcement of enhanced allocation to Ayushman Bharat and introduction of Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi are against the claims made by the Prime Minister during the launch of the NITI Ayog.