Hyderabad: The Telangana government has integrated its Arogyasri scheme for free medical treatment of the poor, with Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY) clearing the decks for the implementation of the central scheme in the state.
The State Department of Medical and Health has signed an agreement with the National Health Authority following the decision of Prime Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao to join the Central Government Scheme.
The Department of Medical and Health has consequently finalized the guidelines for the implementation of Ayushman Bharat in the state, the prime minister’s office said.
The CM instructed the officials concerned to ensure that the medical services are expanded in accordance with the guidelines. General Secretary (Medical and Health) SAM Rizvi and CEO of Aarogyasri Health Care Trust issued the orders accordingly.
Rizvi has appointed the chief executive, Aarogyasri Health Care Trust, Hyderabad, to ensure that the treatment of patients in hospitals with a comprehensive hospital is taken across the state, according to the composite scheme of Ayushman Bharat-PMJAY-Arogyasri, with immediate effect .
After the Ayushman Bharat scheme was rejected for more than two years, the state government announced in December last year that it had decided to unite the state’s Arogyasri scheme with the Center’s program.
Secretary-General Somesh Kumar told Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the video conference that you had made the minister’s decision to combine the two.
The decision of the state government was a surprise because he claims that the Arogyasri scheme is comprehensive and better than Ayushman Bharat.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) criticized the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) government for not implementing Ayushman Bharat, thus depriving people of Telangana of the benefits of the scheme, which provides a health coverage of 5 million Rakh.
The rejection of Ayushman Bharat in favor of the Aarogyasri medical health coverage scheme, KCR, as the prime minister is widely known, told the 2019 Assembly that the state government is not interested in wasting public money on the central schemes that are not beneficial to the people.
While presenting the state budget, he claimed that Arogyasri was more advantageous and had a wider outreach than the Ayushman Bharat scheme, and that the government spends 1,336 million euros a year to help families with 85.34 lakh.
With Ayushman Bharat, it is possible for the state to provide only medical benefits up to 250 million euros a year and benefit only 26 families, he said.
KCR also claimed that the state government through Arogyasri is expanding services related to 25 different organ transplant procedures for free, which are not available under the Ayushman Bharat scheme.
Source: The Siasat Daily