Madhya Pradesh illness fund to be merged with Ayushman Bharat scheme

BHOPAL: The ‘state illness assistance fund’ will no longer exist in Madhya Pradesh after Ayushman Bharat comes into effect on September 25. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be in Bhopal on that day to launch the scheme and inaugurate the secretariat annexe building. The state has completed its formalities for the purpose, sources said, adding that around Rs 10 crore that is left with state illness assistance fund will be pumped into Ayushman Bharat.

Gauri Singh, additional chief secretary of public health and family welfare department, confirmed that the illness assistance fund will be merged with Ayushman Bharat. The two schemes cannot run separately, she said.

Officials say Ayushman Bharat will cover 70% of MP’s population and will be more effective than the state scheme, which ran for about 21 years. “Under Ayushman, 60% amount is given by the Centre and the rest by the state. Besides, it covers 1,350 diseases while the state illness assistance fund covered only 26,” said NRHM joint director Pankaj Shukla.

Ayushman aims to cover 10cr families

Only the BPL community was covered under the state scheme, but Ayushman has much wider coverage, he added.

Ayushman Bharat — PM Narendra Modi’s brainchild — provides assistance of Rs 5 lakh per family per year while the state fund’s aid is between Rs 25,000 and Rs 2 lakh. Under the central scheme, all government hospitals and a few private hospitals will give cashless treatment.

Ayushman has got endorsement from Lancet, the world’s most prestigious medical journal. In an article accompanying five Indiaspecific disease burden studies released on Wednesday, the journal’s editor-inchief Richard Horton has said Modi is the first PM to prioritise universal health coverage as part of his political reforms.

The Modi government is banking on this scheme ahead of polls. However, officials pointed that it may increase the state’s dependence on the Centre.

Ayushman Bharat, the biggest health financing scheme in the world, aims to cover 10 crore poor families. Its launch date coincides with the birth anniversary of RSS ideologue Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyaya.