Ayushman Bharat

Ayushman Bharat is the Government of India's flagship health-sector initiative launched on 23 September 2018 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Ranchi, Jharkhand, conceived to operationalise the goal of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) under Sustainable Development Goal 3 and the National Health Policy of 2017. The scheme rests on two mutually reinforcing pillars. The first is the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY), the world's largest publicly funded health-assurance scheme, which provides a cashless, paperless cover of ₹5 lakh per family per year for secondary and tertiary hospitalisation. The second pillar is the network of Ayushman Arogya Mandirs (originally Health and Wellness Centres, renamed in 2023), which upgrade Sub-Centres and Primary Health Centres to deliver Comprehensive Primary Health Care (CPHC), including free essential drugs and diagnostics. The scheme is administered by the National Health Authority (NHA), an autonomous body under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

PM-JAY's beneficiary base is drawn from the deprivation and occupational criteria of the Socio-Economic Caste Census (SECC) 2011, covering the bottom roughly 40% of the population — about 12 crore families or 55 crore individuals at launch. The scheme is entitlement-based, requiring no enrolment fee, and is portable across states, allowing a beneficiary to avail treatment at any empanelled public or private hospital nationwide. It covers around 1,949 medical procedures, with costs shared between the Centre and states (typically 60:40, and 90:10 for Himalayan and North-Eastern states). The Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM), launched in 2021, adds a digital layer through the Ayushman Bharat Health Account (ABHA), a unique 14-digit health ID enabling interoperable digital health records — a feature frequently tested in science-and-technology and e-governance questions.

In its current (2026) status, the scheme has expanded significantly. The Union Budget 2024–25 announced AB PM-JAY coverage for all citizens aged 70 and above irrespective of income, operationalised through the Vaya Vandana Card, adding roughly 6 crore senior citizens. State-level convergence schemes — such as Kerala's KASP and Tamil Nadu's CMCHIS — operate alongside PM-JAY, though some states (notably Delhi and West Bengal earlier) declined participation, a recurring point of federalism debate. Persistent challenges include private-hospital empanelment gaps in poorer states, package-rate disputes, fraud and ghost-billing, and exclusion errors arising from the dated SECC 2011 database.

For the examination, Ayushman Bharat is among the most heavily tested welfare schemes. In UPSC Indian Economy, it features in questions on health expenditure, the public–private mix, out-of-pocket expenditure reduction, and demand-side financing versus supply-side investment. In Indian Society / GS Paper I and II, it is examined as a social-security and UHC measure linked to the Directive Principles, particularly Article 47 (duty of the State to raise nutrition and public health). In Science and Technology, the ABDM, ABHA ID, and telemedicine integration are the typical angle. Candidates should remember the launch year (2018), the ₹5 lakh figure, the SECC 2011 basis, the NHA as implementing agency, and the 2024 extension to those aged 70-plus.