Modi to launch expanded Ayushman Bharat scheme, U-Win portal in Oct: Nadda

New TB regimen to reduce duration of regimen for drug resistant TB patients to come early next year

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi will formally launch the expanded Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY) scheme and the vaccination tracking portal U-Win next month, Health Minister J P Nadda announced on Friday.

Addressing a press conference on the first 100 days of the Modi 3.0 government, Nadda said the AB-PMJAY scheme would benefit around 60 million eligible citizens aged 70 and above across 45 million families. 

The development follows the central government’s announcement on expanding AB-PMJAY to cover all senior citizens of 70 years and above, without any income cap. The scheme provides cashless and paperless benefit cover of Rs 5 lakh per annum per family on a floater basis in empanelled hospitals across India. 

According to data from the National Health Authority (NHA), the scheme has so far covered over 354 million citizens by providing them PMJAY cards to avail Rs 5 lakh for health insurance.   

While the online vaccine management portal U-WIN, currently operational on a pilot basis, has 64.6 million beneficiaries, the expanded AB-PMJAY will be implemented in October this year.

The health minister also announced the availability of a new and efficacious treatment regimen for tuberculosis (TB) available for use under the National TB Elimination Programme (NTEP). He said it would help reduce the treatment duration to six months from nine to twelve months. 

“The government is preparing a detailed rollout plan for logistics and training of health professionals for the introduction of this new regimen early next year. This is expected to reduce the duration of the treatment regimen in approximately 75,000 drug-resistant TB (DRTB) cases across the country,” he said. 

The minister also announced that all issues related to the allotment of land for All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Darbhanga, pending for over 3 years, have been resolved.

“The Bihar government has allotted and handed over 150.13 acres of land required for the institute,” he added.