Except West Bengal, all states and UTs have been onboarded for Ayushman Bharat scheme: J P Nadda in Lok Sabha

New Delhi Except for West Bengal, all states and Union Territories across the nation have been onboarded for the Ayushman Bharat - Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY) as of March 26, Union Health Minister J P Nadda told the Lok Sabha on Friday.

More than 8.9 crore hospital admissions worth Rs 1.26 lakh were authorised under AB-PMJAY since its inception till March 1, 2025, Nadda said.

Responding to a question, Nadda said that as of March 20, more than 10.21 lakh, 14.47 lakh, and 14.76 lakh Ayushman cards have been created for Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs), Anganwadi Workers (AWWs) and Anganwadi Helpers (AWHs) beneficiary families, respectively, under the scheme.

Till March 1, 30,957 hospitals, including 13,866 private and 17,091 public hospitals, were empanelled under the scheme.

Nadda said that till March 1, over 2.21 crore hospital admissions worth Rs 34,954 crore were authorised under AB-PMJAY for FY 2024-25.

Regular updation such as expansion of beneficiary base, inclusion of new procedures, empanelment of new hospitals and other improvements are done in the scheme as per requirements from time to time, he said.

Nadda said that under AB-PMJAY, the eligibility criteria for the beneficiary families were initially identified from the Socio-Economic Caste Census (SECC) of 2011 on the basis of six deprivation and 11 occupational criteria across rural and urban areas, respectively.

Further, in January 2022, on the basis of decadal growth rate of 11.7 per cent, the Government of India revised the beneficiary base to 12 crore families and provided the flexibility to states and Union Territories to use other databases (of similar socio-economic profile) for verification of beneficiaries against such SECC beneficiaries who could not be identified and verified.

Several states and Union Territories (UTs) implementing AB-PMJAY have further expanded the beneficiary base under the scheme using non-SECC data sources (including the National Food Security Act, state specific datasets).

In March 2024, the eligibility criteria under the scheme were expanded to include 37 lakh ASHA workers, AWWs, AWHs and their families, Nadda said.

Further, on October 29, 2024, the government expanded AB-PMJAY to provide free treatment benefits of up to Rs 5 lakh per year to approximately six crore senior citizens aged 70 years and above, belonging to 4.5 crore families, irrespective of their socio-economic status.

Under AB-PMJAY, the health benefit packages have been revised five times since the launch of the scheme. Initially, the scheme included 1,359 packages, but the Health Benefit Package (HBP) 2022 now comprises 1,961 packages across 27 medical specialities, the minister said.

A total of 365 new treatment procedures have been added and the rates for 832 packages have been increased. High-end procedures such as bone marrow transplants and cochlear implant surgeries have been introduced in addition to the already covered kidney transplants, he said.

Additionally, the national portal, dashboard and analytical solution enables real-time monitoring, trend analysis and fraud detection, strengthening scheme implementation, Nadda said.