India under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is all set to launch the second version of the Ayushman Bharat campaign. The aim of the campaign is to provide a comprehensive health cover to all the people in India. The second version would be in the position to provide an accessibility to the 400 million citizens of India who belong to the middle-income group. The said move is likely to boost the social infrastructure of the country well ahead of the upcoming central elections in 2024.
The second version of the campaign is being channelized by the Niti Aayog in collaboration with the Health ministry. They are working to offer full-fledged health cover to a given sect of the population. The Government is currently exploring different types of schemes for the people taking into consideration the financial challenges of implementing the plan so far. For the time being, the government would be offering to provide a financial assistance of upto Rs. 5 lakh per family for minimum top-up contribution received by a single family. Deliberations are currently going on with health insurance companies to develop a master plan for decreasing the financial burden of medical expenses on every family.
Niti Aayog has taken the complete responsibility of the mission so far. It is preparing a draft policy for the programme. The second version seems to strengthen the measures which have been put forth by first version of the campaign. The renewed and the revamped version is expected to be extended across 500 million people. This is going to be three times of what was previously thought for.
The scheme aims to benefits all the people who are included in the category of socio-economic people as a part of Census 2011. The Government tries to cover around 40% of the lower strata of the society because it is felt that these people are very vulnerable to health emergencies owing to the low nutrition intake. In fact, their income is very less and hence, they really cannot afford the expensive medical treatment. The top 20% of the population in terms of income have been expressly excluded from this scheme because of their capacity to pay and afford expensive medical treatment.
Niti Aayog would be publishing the first draft by the end of this financial year. A significant amount has already been allocated to the scheme under the budget so far. All the objectives under this scheme would be fulfilled under the budget allocated. The Government aims to increase the awareness about health and therefore plans to operationalize affordable treatment schemes for the people at an affordable rate.