Health Ministry targets 30 mn hospitalisations under PMJAY for FY27

The health ministry is targeting a sharp rise in hospital admissions and claims disbursal under PMJAY in FY27, even as the Budget provides only a marginal increase in the scheme's overall allocation

The Union health ministry is aiming for 30 million hospital admissions under the Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY) scheme in 2026-27 (FY27), with a claim target of ₹36,000 crore expected to be disbursed for payment of claims this year.

 

This is a 63 per cent rise from the ₹22,000 crore earmarked for claims payments in FY26.

 

According to Budget documents reviewed by Business Standard, the expansion plans include empanelment of 1,800 new government and private hospitals under the scheme, which will lead to 8 per cent rise in the number of hospitals currently empanelled.

 

More than 33,000 hospitals are currently empanelled under PMJAY, of which 17,505 are public establishments while around 15,600 are private health-care centres.

 

Budget estimates (BE) for FY27 have put allocation for PMJAY at ₹9,500 crore, a 0.9 per cent increase from ₹9,406 crore in FY26BE.

 

Launched in 2018, PMJAY aims at providing health cover of ₹5 lakh per family per year for secondary and tertiary care hospitalisation to around 550 million individuals, corresponding to 123.4 million families.

 

Whether households are covered or not depends on the deprivation and occupational criteria of the Socio-Economic Caste Census 2011 (SECC 2011) for rural and urban areas, respectively.

 

Over 431 million Ayushman Cards have been created till now, according to data available on the PMJAY dashboard.

 

The government is also aiming for keeping the rate of frauds detected against total claims submitted at 1 per cent in FY27.