Modi said that elderlies in Delhi and Bengal won’t be able to benefit from the scheme as their governments are not implementing it for political reasons.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday trained guns at the state governments in Delhi and Bengal over the implementation of the Centre’s Ayushman Bharat scheme.
While launching development projects related to healthcare and extending his government’s flagship health insurance scheme Ayushman Bharat to all senior citizens aged 70 years and above, the prime minister said that elderlies in Delhi and Bengal won’t be able to benefit from the scheme as their governments are not implementing it for political reasons.
“I apologise to all the elderly people above 70 years of age in Delhi and all the elderly people above 70 years of age in West Bengal that I will not be able to serve you,” Modi said, according to ANI. “I apologize to them that I will know how you are, I will get the information but I will not be able to help you and the reason is that the government in Delhi and the government in West Bengal are not joining this Ayushman Yojana.”
Targeting the AAP government in Delhi and the Trinamool Congress government in West Bengal, Modi said that the tendency to “oppress the sick people” of one’s own state for political interests is against any humane attitude.
“The tendency to oppress the sick people of your own state for your political interests is against any humane attitude and hence I apologize to the elderly people of West Bengal, I apologize to the elderly people of Delhi, I can serve the people of the country, but the walls of the political profession are preventing me from serving the elderly people of Delhi, and West Bengal,” he added.
In his address, the prime minister also highlighted the Ayushman Bharat scheme, saying that around 4 crore poor people in the country have benefited from it.
“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,” he said.
“The government decided that the government would bear the cost of treatment of the poor up to ₹5 lakh. Around 4 crore poor people in the country have benefited from the Ayushman Bharat scheme.”
What is the scheme and why Delhi and Bengal are not part of it?
Prime Minister Narendra Modi rolled out the Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY) in February 2018. The insurance scheme aims to provide an annual health cover of ₹5 lakh per family for secondary and tertiary care hospitalisation.
In 2019, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, who also holds the state’s health portfolio, announced that her state government would not be a part of the Ayushman Bharat scheme as she accused the prime minister of “taking credit” for the scheme, even as the states were supposed to contribute 40% of the expenses.
The Delhi government, too, had refused to be a part of the Ayushman Bharat scheme, saying the Centre’s flagship national health protection scheme (NHPS) would not offer cover to enough people and that the UT would work towards implementing its own health insurance scheme instead.
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