Only half of Rs 6,400 crore fund utilised for Centre’s flagship PMJAY scheme

Data shared by the authority shows that of the total intended 10.74 crore families, the programme has enrolled only 6 crore families.
For representational purposes
For representational purposes

NEW DELHI:  Funds under the Centre’s flagship health insurance scheme Pradhan Mantri Jan Aarogya Yojana have remained grossly unspent in the current fiscal, indicating massive under-utilisation of the programme that was projected as a panacea to solve the healthcare woes of the poor in the country.

The latest data shows that in the revised estimates under the PMJAY, the Finance Ministry has sanctioned just Rs 3,200 crore of the originally allocated Rs 6,400 crore for the scheme. Despite this, a total allocation of Rs 6,400 crore was announced for the scheme for the next fiscal in the Union Budget two days ago. 

The scheme was launched in September 2018 in order to provide cashless secondary and tertiary healthcare services of up to Rs 5 lakh to nearly 10.74 crore most vulnerable families or over 50 crore individuals.

Officials running the programme said that under-utilisation of the fund is on account of four key states — West Bengal, Odisha, Telangana and Delhi — opting out of the scheme and inability to trace nearly 30 per cent of the intended beneficiaries as per the Sociology — economic and caste census data, 2011 — that was to serve as database to identify the beneficiaries.

“Also, the three most populous states — Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh — are under-performing and that’s a major reason why the fund utilised has remained lesser than estimated,” a top official in the National Health Authority that runs PMJAY told this newspaper.

“We have been able to enroll only 60 per cent of intended beneficiaries in the urban areas and 80 per cent in rural areas in the states where the scheme is running as the rest are missing,” the official added.

Data shared by the authority shows that of the total intended 10.74 crore families, the programme has enrolled only 6 crore families.

And a large number of them are still unable to avail the facilities due to lack of awareness and the limited presence of healthcare infrastructure or facilities.

It further shows that of the total number of 80.35 lakh hospital admissions under the initiative, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Kerala top the chart but the admissions from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh among the larger states are way lesser than expected.

Shaktivel Selvaraj, a health economist with the New Delhi-based Public Health Foundation of India, said that PMJAY essentially being an extension of the previous central health insurance plan, Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana, was throwing the same pattern of utilizsation.

“The sates with better health systems and previous experience of implementing such schemes are doing better than many north Indian states that are lagging far behind,” he said.

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