HYDERABAD: A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched ‘Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Aarogya Yojana’, Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah said that it is saddening that people from Telangana are not able to utilise the scheme because of Telangana government’s decision. In his tweet on Monday, the BJP chief stated that people in the State are not able to receive benefits of the scheme because of TRS’s selfish thought.
Currently, the Telangana State government is implementing Aarogyasri Health Scheme for people in the State. While a cover of Rs 5 lakh per family annually is provided under the Ayushman Bharat scheme, Aarogyasri Scheme provides Rs 2 lakh cover per year to families living below poverty line, and it gets extended to Rs 13 lakhs on case to case basis.
“Telangana government is currently providing the Aarogyasri scheme to 80 lakh families under which treatment is provided free of cost. More than 20 lakh families are covered under other health schemes including Aarogyabadhratha, Employee Health Scheme, health scheme of SCCL, and others,” said Dr C Laxma Reddy, State Health minister.
The minister said that the State government extended help to Ayushman Bharat scheme by providing software and other technical help. “Through this scheme (Ayushman Bharat), only 25 lakh families will benefit, while 80 lakh families in the State are already covered under Aarogyasri Health Scheme. Identifying 25 lakh families out of these 80 lakh and providing Arogyasri to remaining 55 lakh will lead to problems in implementation,” the Minister said.
KTR retaliates
You’re clearly misinformed @AmitShah Ji. The successful Arogya Sri program of Telangana is far superior in terms of coverage (80 lakh families) in comparison to Ayushman Bharat (only 25 lakh families in Telangana). We are a role model state in Universal health coverage