The Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY) is a national public health insurance scheme of the Government of India. It was announced in the Union Budget 2018 and formally launched on September 23, 2018, by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Ranchi, Jharkhand. The scheme was created to solve the problem of catastrophic health expenditure for the poor by providing financial protection for secondary and tertiary healthcare. It targets nearly 40% of India's economically vulnerable population, roughly the bottom 50% of the country.
The scheme works by providing a health insurance cover of up to ₹5 lakh per family per year for medical treatment in empaneled hospitals. The mechanism is designed to be cashless and paperless for beneficiaries seeking secondary and tertiary hospitalization. Eligibility is determined based on the deprivation and occupational criteria from the Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC-2011). Key provisions include coverage for all pre-existing medical conditions from day one, and expenses for up to 3 days of pre-hospitalization and 15 days of post-hospitalization. The scheme is portable, allowing beneficiaries to avail treatment at any empaneled hospital nationwide.
AB-PMJAY is a centrally sponsored scheme administered by the National Health Authority (NHA) under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. It is one of the two major initiatives under the umbrella of Ayushman Bharat, the other being the establishment of Health and Wellness Centres. The scheme is an expansion of the government's National Health Policy and was previously known as the National Health Protection Scheme. A significant recent change was the Union Cabinet's approval on September 11, 2024, to expand the scheme to include all senior citizens aged 70 years and above, regardless of their economic status, providing them with health coverage of up to ₹5 lakh per family.