INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Southern states are leading the way in authorised hospital admissions under the Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana
Image: Bloomberg3 min read Last Updated : Oct 13 2024 | 11:53 AM IST
Southern states are leading the way in authorised hospital
admissions under the Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY), with four states out of the top five from the
(6.60 million), Rajasthan (5.74 million), Kerala (5.46 million) and Andhra Pradesh (4.96 million), according to data available on the PMJAY
cards.Karnataka (17.5 million cards) and Andhra Pradesh (15.6 million cards) are the highest card creating states in the south, placed
eighth and tenth on the list.Telangana, which joined the scheme only in 2021, has 8.29 million Ayushman cards, which is more than Kerala
growth in hospital admissions under the scheme since the last three financial years, according to data presented by the Ministry of Health
and Family Welfare in the parliament.Hospital admissions under the scheme in Tamil Nadu hospitals have come down from 4.39 million in
Standard, suggests that the number of PMJAY admissions in Kerala have dropped from 1.69 million in FY22 to 1.07 million in
FY24.
Authorised hospital admissions have seen gradual increase in Andhra Pradesh (from 1.13 million in FY22 to 1.84 million in FY24),
Karnataka (from 1.08 million in FY22 to 3.21 million in FY24) and Telangana (from 323,421 in FY22 to 618,497 in FY24).High card creators see
low admission numbersUttar Pradesh with 51 million Ayushman cards has recorded only 2.8 million admissions under the scheme, according to
PMJAY data
Similarly, other high card creating states like Madhya Pradesh (40.2 million cards) and Bihar (35.6 million cards) have
recorded only 3.35 million and 778,000 hospital admission respectively.
While Bihar had restarted the scheme under a new name only in
March 2024 after three years, no information is available on reasons for lower hospital admission numbers in other states.
According to
the National Health Authority (NHA) data, the scheme has, so far, covered over 356 million citizens, who have received Ayushman cards to
avail free health insurance of Rs5 lakh for hospitalisation.
More than 68 million hospitalisations worth Rs90,204 crore have been covered
provide health cover of Rs5 lakh per family per year for secondary and tertiary care hospitalisation to around 550 million (55 crore)
individuals, corresponding to 123.4 million families.
Whether households are covered or not depends on the deprivation and occupational
criteria of the Socio-Economic Caste Census 2011 (SECC 2011) for rural and urban areas, respectively.
The scheme was later expanded to
cover Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) and Anganwadi workers, and then all citizens aged 70 years and above.First Published: Oct 13
