51 lakh people issued Ayushman Bharat PM-JAY e-cards in Bihar

Implementation of Ayushman Bharat in Bihar has crossed another milestone as 51 lakh beneficiaries received their Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB PM-JAY) e-cards. With this, e-cards have been issued to more than 24.19 lakh families, which is 22 percent of the eligible families.

AB PM-JAY is being implemented by the Bihar Swasthya Suraksha Samiti (State Health Agency, Bihar) AB PM-JAY in the State of Bihar. It is a flagship public health insurance/assurance scheme of the Government of India being jointly implemented with State counterparts. AB PM-JAY is the world’s largest publicly funded health assurance program. Around 10% of beneficiary families (approx. 1.08 crore) under the scheme are from Bihar. So far, 1,70,281 cases of hospital admissions worth Rs. 169 crores have been authorized under the scheme in the State.

State Health Agency (SHA), Bihar has recently involved the services of 8,386 Executive Assistants of Department of Panchayati Raj (PREA) to issue e-cards to beneficiary families. The SHA is leveraging on their local connections and 9,32,267 e-cards have been issued by these Executive Assistants. State is incentivizing these PREAs by paying them Rs. 5 per card issued. 

Dr. Indu Bhushan, CEO, AB-PMJAY and National Health Authority said,” The Bihar team has done well and has been able to achieve a milestone of 50 lakhs e-cards issued to the beneficiaries. While Bihar has a long way to go in terms of health outcomes, given its unique challenges of health infrastructure and socio-economic development, this is an encouraging indicator of the potential of the State to ensure timely access to healthcare to the poor. We are working with the State and supporting them to set up the scheme mechanism with a robust, state-of-the-art IT infrastructure We will also be lending full support to increase awareness about the scheme through a state-wide communication campaign and further strengthen and deepen the scheme by helping them get high-quality hospitals on board.”