New Delhi:

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government has told the Delhi High Court that it did not implement the Centre’s Ayushman Bharat Yojana for medical insurance because the capital’s residents enjoy “superior” benefits under the Delhi government’s schemes. Implementing the Centre’s scheme would downgrade the health schemes currently in force in Delhi, the capital’s Health and Family Welfare Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj said in an affidavit.

The AAP minister was responding to a petition by seven BJP MPs, seeking the implementation of the central scheme. In his response, he has said that the petition, “ostensibly filed as a public interest litigation, is nothing else but a politically motivated petition, filed in view of the ensuing elections to the legislative assembly of Delhi”.

“The petitioners are political persons, who belong to the principal opposition party in Delhi. The said political party has been trying to impose its wishes on Delhi, even though they were able to win only 10% of the seats in the last election to the legislative assembly,” the affidavit said.

The Delhi minister said the petition sings “unnecessary praises” of the Centre’s scheme but does not mention the policies currently in force in Delhi. “The omission is deliberate in as much as had any such comparison been done between the scheme of the Central Government and the various schemes already being implemented by the Delhi Government, it would have been evident that the schemes of the Delhi Government are far superior to the scheme of the Central Government,” he said.

He added that if the schemes in place in the capital are substituted by the Centre’s scheme, “it will be a loss for the residents of Delhi”.

Stressing that policymaking is the exclusive domain of the Delhi government, the minister said it is settled law that no court will enter the domain of framing of policy.

“AB-PMJAY scheme is unsuitable for meeting the requirements of the people of Delhi. The said scheme has been framed by the Central Government based upon the material and data available with them. The AB-PMJAY scheme is based upon the estimation of the Central Government. However, in a federal structure in India, it is not mandatory for every political unit to follow the policy of the Central Government, particularly when the schemes and the policies already in operation and functioning in the city of Delhi are far superior to the AB-PMJAY scheme,” the affidavit said.

The Delhi government has said that the Centre had used 2011 Census data for the Ayushman Bharat scheme. Calling it “old and archaic”, he said the scheme does not take into consideration the evolving

circumstances of the society. “The old and archaic data would not be able to encompass the benefit, which would actually need to be provided to the people of Delhi. This assumes great importance in view of the fact that there are various limiting factors in the scheme framed by the Central Government, which if applied along with the 2011 data will render many people ineligible for benefits under the scheme, even though they are being provided free medical services under the schemes formulated by the Delhi Government.”

“Any scheme which is based upon an outdated data can by no stretch of imagination be thrust down the throat of any other government or for that matter people,” the affidavit added.

Hitting back at the AAP government, BJP MP Bansuri Swaraj said there is no willingness on the part of the Delhi government to implement the central scheme. She clarified that the Centre’s scheme was not to substitute the state government’s initiatives but to support it.

New Delhi:

The tussle between the Centre and the Delhi government over not implementing Ayushman Bharat escalated on Wednesday with Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena hitting out at AAP chief and former chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, claiming that he had deprived people of the benefits of the healthcare scheme to prevent the “false model” promoted by him from getting “exposed”. 

In a lengthy post on X in Hindi, Mr Saxena said he does not pay attention to Mr Kejriwal’s baseless statements but was forced to do so this time because it concerned the Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana, which benefits crores of Indians. 

“You have kept lakhs of people of Delhi deprived of this scheme till now only because of the fear that its implementation may reveal the truth of the false health model being promoted by you and your habit of taking false credit for everything may get exposed,” Mr Saxena claimed, adding that Mr Kejriwal had opposed Ayushman Bharat because he wanted his name associated with it. 

After Prime Minister Narendra Modi had criticised the Delhi and West Bengal governments for failing to implement the Ayushman Bharat health insurance scheme out of “political interests”, the AAP chief had accused the PM of indulging in politics over public health. In a post on Tuesday, he had also questioned the benefits under the scheme, saying the Comptroller and Auditor General had found several irregularities, and claimed a similar initiative by the Delhi government had benefited lakhs of people. 

Continuing his scathing attack, Mr Saxena said the Delhi government’s health department had recommended implementing the Ayushman Bharat scheme in June 2018 and the then health minister had given permission for doing so. 

“After that, in August 2018, your government talked about naming the Ayushman Bharat scheme ‘Chief Minister Aam Aadmi Health Insurance Scheme Ayushman Bharat’. The Government of India, which bears most of the cost of this scheme, also agreed to your self-glorification by simply asking you to use your name after ‘Ayushman Bharat’,” the lieutenant governor wrote. 

He said that the implementation of the scheme was also announced in the Delhi Assembly in 2020-21 but Mr Kejriwal’s “hunger for publicity” has not allowed it to happen.

‘Web Of Illusion’

Strongly criticising the Delhi health model, Mr Saxena termed it a “web of illusion” created by Mr Kejriwal’s “propaganda machinery”.

“You have been suppressing the CAG reports of the health department for years. You do not allow these CAG reports to be presented in the Vidhan Sabha lest they expose your web of illusions. Perhaps Delhi would be the only example where the High Court orders the health minister to appear in person and asks him to make medicines available to the people. Perhaps Delhi is the only example where the honourable courts had to give orders to repair the CT scan machine in the biggest hospital of the Delhi government,” he said. 

The lieutenant governor also accused the Delhi government of not revising the “Essential Drug List” since 2013. 

“In the last 10 years, the people of Delhi have been very troubled by your hollow health model. I hope that you (Mr Kejriwal) will put politics aside, accept the truth and implement the Ayushman Bharat scheme for the people of Delhi as soon as possible. Since you are no longer the chief minister, you will probably not feel the need to name the Ayushman Bharat scheme after the chief minister,” Mr Saxena sneered. 

‘More Procedures Covered’

BJP’s IT Cell head Amit Malviya also took to X to “expose” Mr Kejriwal’s lies on Ayushman Bharat and the Delhi healthcare programme and said that while the former chief minister has claimed that there is no upper limit under the ‘Delhi Arogya Kosh’, the cap is actually Rs 5 lakh.

This post exposes Arvind Kejriwal’s lies on Ayushman Bharat and Delhi’s Healthcare Programme. Read.

Arvind Kejriwal has been refusing to implement the Ayushman Bharat Yojana in Delhi. He is citing the following reasons:

1. As per Arvind Kejriwal, Ayushman Bharat offers only a… https://t.co/Mf0mDDkwqM

— Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) October 30, 2024

Among other things, Mr Malviya also said that the Delhi scheme does not factor in people who are over the age of 70 and are not voters within the national capital and that the Ayushman Bharat covers many more procedures. 

AAP’s Take

Mr Kejriwal had said he had yet to meet a person who got treatment through the Ayushman Bharat scheme and claimed that, under the Delhi government’s initiative, each person in the city receives free medical treatment and the government bears the entire cost whether it’s a 5-rupee pill or treatment worth Rs 1 crore.

Delhi Health Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj also claimed that Ayushman Bharat is a “failed” scheme and said poor patients from states like Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, and Rajasthan – where the scheme had been implemented – visited hospitals in the capital for surgeries.

“Delhi government hospitals provide free treatment unlike the paid treatment provided in BJP-ruled states. Delhi government health schemes are far more effective than Ayushman Bharat scheme,” he asserted.

New Delhi:

Targeting the Trinamool Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) over not implementing the Ayushman Bharat scheme in West Bengal and Delhi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today said the tendency to oppress ailing people for political interests is inhuman.

The Prime Minister launched the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY) health insurance scheme for senior citizens. Under this scheme, people aged above 70 years will get a health cover up to Rs Rs 5 lakh annually. Those already covered under the Ayushman Bharat scheme will get a top-up of Rs 5 lakh crore. The scheme aims to benefit about 6 crore senior citizens.

“There was a time when people’s houses, lands, jewellery were sold for treatment. The soul of the poor trembled on hearing the cost of treatment for a serious disease. The helplessness of not being able to get treatment due to lack of money would shatter the poor. I could not see my poor brothers and sisters in this helplessness. That is why the ‘Ayushman Bharat’ scheme was born,” the Prime Minister said, adding that around 4 crore people in the country benefited from the scheme.

“But I apologise to the elderly in Delhi and West Bengal for being unable to serve them. I would know that you are in trouble, but I won’t be able to help you. Because the governments in Delhi and West Bengal are not joining this scheme,” he said.

“The tendency to oppress the sick people of your state for political interests does not stand the test of humanity. I can serve the people of the country, but the walls of political interests are preventing me from serving the elderly people of Delhi, and West Bengal,” the Prime Minister said.

Under the Ayushman Bharat scheme, the Centre and state governments shoulder the cost of premiums in a 60-40 ratio. Both Bengal and Delhi governments have health insurance schemes of their own, which they claim are better than the Centre’s plan. 

The Prime Minister said the government has prepared five highlights of a national health policy. “First is preventive healthcare, second is timely intervention, third is affordable treatment and medicines, fourth is robust facilities and qualified doctors in small cities and the fifth is use of advanced technology. India now looks at healthcare with a holistic viewpoint,” he said.

The Prime Minister launched a string of health projects worth Rs 12,850 crore.  
 

India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman holds up a folder with the Government of India’s logo as she leaves her office to present the union budget in the parliament in New Delhi, India, July 23, 2024.
| Photo Credit: ALTAF HUSSAIN

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, on Tuesday, presented the first Union Budget of the third term of the Narendra Modi-led NDA government. The Hindu Data team has compiled a series of graphs to analyse the impact of the Budget on select sectors and schemes. 

Data shows that expenditure as a share of the total budget on infrastructure has increased. In contrast, expenditure on major schemes in the social sectors, which includes education, pension and health, have either stagnated or declined. Spending on agriculture too, when considered as a share of the total budget, has stagnated. 

Before delving into individual sectors and schemes, the graph below provides an overview.

The graph below depicts the budgeted expenditure (Rs crore) for FY25BE and the change from FY24RE in percentage points. The bigger the rectangle, the higher the allocation for a sector. The deeper the blue, the higher the increase compared with FY24RE. The deeper the red, the higher the decrease compared with FY24RE. 

As usual, interest payments garnered a lion’s share of the budget this year. In absolute figures, Rs 11,62,940 crore was allocated for interest payments. If expressed as a share of FY25BE’s total Budget, it comes to 24.12%, which is 0.62 percentage points more than its share in FY24RE. Apart from interest payments, the transport sector formed the bulk of the expenditure in FY25BE at 11.29%. However, transport’s share in the total Budget came down by 0.4% points from last year.

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The allocation to agriculture remained stagnant at around 3.1% of the total budget. Allocation to flagship schemes such as Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) and Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PMKSN), as a share of total budget, declined in FY25BE.

Defence expenditure as a share of the total Budget declined to 9.43%, the lowest in at least nine years. In fact, defence expenditure in absolute terms has also declined. Allocations to the departments of Space have stagnated, while the Science and Technology ministry’s share in total Budget has improved slightly to 0.17%.

Allocations to all the schemes under the Space sector, as a share of total budget, have stagnated. 

Allocations for various social sectors such as health, rural development and education as a share of the total budget have stagnated or declined, with the social welfare sector being the only exception – whose share improved to 1.17% of the total budget in FY25BE.

Also read: Budget 2024: The government’s focus is on ease of paying taxes 

Outlays to schemes under social sectors such as MGNREGA, Samagra Shiksha, Ayushman Bharat, old age pension, widow pension, Swasthya Suraksha, have all declined in the recent years. Allocation to Ayushman Bharat has remained more or less the same in recent years after a sharp increase seen in FY23. 

The Transport sector on the other hand has formed a bulk of this year’s expenditure. Allocation to the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MORTH) and the telecom department has remained consistently high. Allocations to the power sector too have improved marginally from last year. 

While the outlays to implement housing in urban & rural areas, and other basic amenities in urban areas improved marginally in FY25BE, allocations to smart city missions, as a share of the total Budget, has plunged. 

In FY25BE, the Railway Ministry outlay in the overall budget continued to be over the 5% mark. Allocations for the signalling and telecom works, under which KAVACH (automatic train collision system for trains) is included, increased compared with FY24RE

However, allocations for the Aviation Ministry which has remained consistently low in recent years declined marginally. The outlay for the Shipping Ministry has also stagnated.

Source: Budget Documents

Also read:How Chennai’s areas and streets voted in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls: A searchable list

Watch | Interim Budget 2024 | What’s in it for health sector?

| Video Credit:
Richard Kujur

Health cover under the Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana will be extended to all Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) and anganwadi workers and helpers said Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday, while announcing the interim Union Budget 2024-25.

While a full budget for 2024-25 will be announced after the new government is formed following the Lok Sabha elections later this year the budget allocation saw an increase from ₹89,155 crore in 2023-24 to ₹90,658.63 crore for the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare while Ayush Ministry also saw a hike from ₹3,647.50 crore to ₹3,712.49 crore.

Budget 2024 live | Interim budget leaves tax structure untouched; FM details Centre’s achievements

For the health sector, the Minister added that India will be bringing in the services of the newly designed U-WIN platform for managing immunisation and intensified efforts of Mission Indradhanush.

“This is to be rolled out expeditiously throughout the country,” the Minister said during her nigh hour long speech.

The other major addition in the sector includes utilising the existing hospital infrastructure under various departments to offer medical seats to students and encouraging HPV vaccination for girls in the age group of 9 to 14 years for prevention of cervical cancer.

The government also proposed to combine various schemes for maternal and childcare and bring them under one comprehensive programme for synergy.

The Minister added that, as part of the Skill India Mission, youth are being trained through various world-class institutes including 15 newly constructed All India Institute of Medical Sciences.

“Several youth have the ambition to get qualified as doctors. They aim to serve our people through improved healthcare services. Our Government plans to set up more medical colleges by utilizing the existing hospital infrastructure under various departments. A committee for this purpose will be set-up to examine the issues and make relevant recommendations,” the Minister said.

The Minister added that geopolitically, global affairs are becoming more challenging with wars and conflicts.

“Globalisation is being redefined with reshoring and friend-shoring, disruption and fragmentation of supply chains, and competition for critical minerals and technologies. A new world order is emerging after the COVID-19 pandemic,” the Minister said. The budget also announced upgradation of Anganwadi centres under ‘Saksham Anganwadi’ and Poshan 2.0 will be expedited to improve nutrition delivery, early childhood care, and development.

The sectors that saw increased allocation of funds in the last 2023-24 budget included Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana, CGHS pensioners, and the National AIDS and STD programme. This year continued with that trend although allocation for development of nursing services did witness a drop.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday, February 1, presented the last full budget of the Narendra Modi government before the 2024 general elections. The Minister announced a range of new initiatives, revised income tax slabs and customs duty, and sops for agriculture and energy transition.

The Union Budget 2023-24 document also listed the new allocations for core welfare schemes that drive socio-economic development. Here’s a roundup of how the budgetary allocations for some of the key schemes have changed-

MGNREGS: The government slashed the budget for its flagship rural employment scheme, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) by nearly 32% compared to the ₹89,400 revised estimate for the scheme in the current year.

Also read | Explained | The funding and demand for MGNREGA

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) was passed in 2005 and aimed at enhancing the livelihood security of households in rural areas. Under it, the MGNREGS is a demand-driven scheme that guarantees 100 days of unskilled work per year for every rural household that wants it, covering all districts in the country except those with a 100% urban population.

Food Subsidies: The Centre has allocated a little above ₹2 lakh crore for the food subsidy under the National Food Security Act (NFSA)- this includes funds for the Food Corporation of India, funds for decentralised procurement of grains by State agencies, and other logistical costs. Starting from January 1, 2023, the Centre had decided to provide 5 kg of free foodgrains per month to the 81.35 crore beneficiaries of the NFSA for one year starting from January 2023, rather than charging them a subsidised amount of ₹3 a kg of rice, ₹2 a kg of wheat and ₹1 a kg of coarse cereal as is usually done.

It was announced in December that the government was terminating the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY), which had provided an additional 5 kg of free grains every month to NFSA beneficiaries after being launched as an emergency measure in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2020 and received multiple extensions since. In a normal year, without COVID disruptions, the Centre’s food subsidy bill on account of the NFSA amounted to around ₹2 lakh crore, similar to the newly-announced allocation, but the PMGKAY had effectively doubled that sum for the past two years.

Jal Jeevan Mission: The Centre increased its budgetary allocation for the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) or the National Rural Drinking Water Mission by about 27% to ₹70,000 crore from the current year’s revised estimates of ₹55,000. The Jal Jeevan Mission aims to provide safe and adequate drinking water through individual household tap connections by 2024 to all households in rural India.

The Jal Shakti Ministry tweeted last week that the government had provided 11 crore rural households with a tap water connection under the JJM scheme. Data from the Ministry’s dashboard suggest that 56% of the targeted 19.3 crore households had been covered.

The scheme has a total financial outlay of about ₹3.60 lakh crore, with the Centre funding 50% of the cost with States and Union Territories, except for Union Territories without a legislature, where it foots the entire bill, and northeastern and Himalayan States and Union Territories with legislatures, where it funds 90% of the bill.

Ayushman Bharat-PMJAY: The budget for the Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY) — the national public health insurance fund, saw an increase of about 12% at ₹7,200 crore compared to the ₹6,000 crore revised estimates for the current year.

The Ayushman Bharat PM-JAY is a health insurance scheme launched in 2018, aiming to provide a health cover of Rs. 5 lakh per family per year for secondary and tertiary care hospitalization. It aims to over 10.74 crore poor and vulnerable families (or 50 crore beneficiaries) from the bottom 40% of the Indian population. Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya had said in December 2022, that 4.5 crore people had so far been empanelled under the scheme.

PM-Kisan: The allocation for the Prime Minister’s Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) scheme was the lowest in five years and remained the same as the revised estimates for the current year at ₹60,000 crore. PM-Kisan is a flagship Central scheme launched in 2019 for cash transfers ₹6,000 per year to eligible farmer families in three instalments of ₹2,000 each.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman informed while presenting the Union Budget on Wednesday that the government has made cash transfers totalling ₹2.2 lakh crore to around 11 crore farmers under the PM-Kisan scheme.

PM-POSHAN: The government has allocated a budget of ₹11,600 crore to the Pradhan Mantri Poshan Shakti Nirman, or the rebranded version of the mid-day meal scheme for 2023-24. This is down 9.37% from the current year’s revised estimates of ₹12,800.

In 2021, while renaming the mid-day meal scheme to give hot cooked meals to 11.8 crore government school students from Class 1 to 8, the Centre had also decided to extend the scheme to 24 lakh children studying in balvatikas, the pre-primary section of government schools from 2022-23.

National Education Mission: A total of ₹38,965 crore was allocated to the National Education Mission for 2023-24, up 19.44% from the ₹32,612 crore revised estimates for the current year. The Mission is the umbrella scheme integrating major education-related schemes so education can be provided holistically and without segmentation from pre-primary to class 12. It includes the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan under the Right to Education and schemes for secondary and higher education as well those for teacher training and adult education.

PMAY: The Centre allocated ₹79,590 crore to the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY), up 3.19% from the current year’s revised estimates and 66% from the budget estimates. The PMAY aims at constructing houses in both urban and rural areas. PMAY-Gramin (rural) was initiated in November 2016 with a target of completing 2.7 crore houses and PMAY-Urban was initiated in June 2015 with a target of constructing 1.2 crore homes.

National Social Assistance Program: The budget allotted ₹9,636 to the National Social Assistance Program (NSAP), which provides monthly pension assistance to the elderly, widows, and persons with disabilities.

Development of Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes: The budget allocated ₹4,295 crore and ₹9,409 crore to the umbrella programs for the development of Scheduled Tribe and Scheduled Caste communities respectively. While the ST development allocation saw a nearly 10% increase, the SC programme funding rose by close to 22%, compared to the current year’s revised estimates.

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