ADVERTISEMENT

Government To Provide More Funds For Ayushman Bharat Next Year, Says Piyush Goyal

The interim budget presented last week raised the allocation for Ayushman Bharat scheme to Rs 6,400 crore for 2019-2020.

A family practice provider  uses a stethoscope to examine a patient (Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg)
A family practice provider uses a stethoscope to examine a patient (Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg)

Finance Minister Piyush Goyal said the government may provide more funds for the world's biggest healthcare scheme—Ayushman Bharat—next year.

In the last four months of its launch, the scheme has already benefitted over 10 lakh people, he said while speaking at the sixth Global Fund Replenishment organised by Ministry of Health.

"The government has already provided half-a-billion-dollar funding for the programme. We expect to provide much more funds in the next year," he said.

The interim budget presented last week raised the allocation for Ayushman Bharat scheme to Rs 6,400 crore for 2019-2020.

"Unless we create a distress free healthcare system for 1.3 billion people in India, unless we look at health in a very holistic fashion right from preventive health care, we will not be able to take people out of distress that healthcare can cause particularly to the lesser privileged," he said.

Improvement of infrastructure of healthcare also opens up huge opportunities for companies around the world to participate in effort to expand the healthcare system, he said.

The scheme aims to provide free healthcare to 50 crore people encompassing different dimension of family healthcare needs.

Also, the Finance Minister said electricity will reach to every home by April of this year, a decade ahead of sustainable development goal.

Opinion
Beds In Rural Areas, Pricing Biggest Challenges To Ayushman Bharat Scheme