Another white elephant in making, says AAP on Ayushman Bharat

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 23

AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal claimed that “Ayushman Bharat” — touted as the world’s biggest healthcare insurance scheme launched by Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi on Sunday — is just a “public relation exercise” which will end up being “another jumla”.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) described the scheme — which aims at providing Rs 5 lakh annually to each family belonging to the economically weaker section — as “another white elephant in the making” and alleged that it covers only six lakh out of 50 lakh families in Delhi.

The PM who launched the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY) – Ayushman Bharat in Ranchi today, dubbed it as a “game-changer initiative to serve the poor”.

Calling for a scheme to address the health woes of India, the AAP opined that Ayushman Bharat is “not at all a universal scheme and is designed in manner which is bound to fail".

“The Ayushman Bharat Scheme, designed by the Modi government caters only to secondary and tertiary requirements. It gives a miss to the most important, the primary healthcare. The Modi government plans to climb the ladder of healthcare without laying a foundation — one of the reasons why the AAP terms the scheme as flawed.

“Without a strong foundation, it is destined to fall. Another biggest flaw of the scheme is that it covers only those patients who are admitted, and not anyone who is not admitted,” said the Delhi’s ruling AAP.

The Kejriwal government claimed that the newly launched scheme leaves scope of fraud and corruption and the rules are too soft for hospitals adding that the Modi government should have learnt from the successful Delhi model of healthcare.

The scheme is not equipped with the required infrastructure, claimed the AAP government adding that instead the Modi government should have worked on providing new primary, tertiary and specialised hospitals and strengthening the existing government hospitals in the country.

Delhi’s  healthcare model is quite opposite to it. The AAP government has built mohalla clinics, polyclinics, hospitals and is strengthening the existing setup so that everyone has a healthcare centre at their doorstep, claimed AAP. The government provides medicines, tests, operations and other healthcare requirements for free to all patients.