Ayushman Bharat Reaches West Bengal: Completing India's Health Coverage Map

Core Context

Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana was launched on 23 September 2018 in Ranchi, Jharkhand, as the secondary and tertiary care insurance component of the wider Ayushman Bharat mission, whose primary-care arm consists of Health and Wellness Centres. Implemented by the National Health Authority under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, PM-JAY is designed as the world's largest government-funded health assurance scheme, offering a cover of up to five lakh rupees per family per year for the bottom forty per cent of India's population identified through Socio-Economic Caste Census deprivation criteria. The scheme is cashless, paperless, portable across states, and places no cap on family size, age, or gender, while also covering pre-existing diseases from day one.

Because PM-JAY is a centrally sponsored scheme with funding shared between the Centre and the states, its actual rollout has always depended on state governments signing on and operationalising it locally. A handful of states, including West Bengal, Delhi, and Odisha, had for years run their own parallel state health insurance schemes instead of adopting PM-JAY, citing concerns over branding, cost-sharing ratios, and administrative control.

Latest Developments

West Bengal's Chief Minister formally launched AB-PMJAY at Netaji Indoor Stadium in Kolkata on 16 August 2026, an occasion the state marked as "Ayushman Diwas." Roughly 1.5 crore families, amounting to nearly six crore individuals, are expected to be covered, with Ayushman cards already distributed to over 1.23 crore verified beneficiaries at launch. With this rollout, West Bengal became the 36th State or Union Territory to implement PM-JAY, leaving Delhi as the only major holdout. The state has indicated that beneficiaries currently under its own Swasthya Sathi scheme will be transitioned gradually, with both schemes reviewed in parallel rather than an abrupt switchover. Under PM-JAY, coverage spans close to 1,929 medical procedures across 27 specialities including cardiology, oncology, and orthopaedics, along with three days of pre-hospitalisation and fifteen days of post-hospitalisation expenses.

UPSC Prelims Angle

• PM-JAY provides a cover of five lakh rupees per family per year, and this figure is a frequently tested static fact, so remember it precisely rather than confusing it with the earlier RSBY cover of thirty thousand rupees.
• Beneficiary identification under PM-JAY is based on deprivation and occupational criteria drawn from the Socio-Economic Caste Census, not on income certificates, which is a distinction examiners like to test.
• PM-JAY is implemented by the National Health Authority, a distinct body from the National Health Mission, and confusing the two is a common error in Prelims options.
• The scheme's portability feature, allowing a beneficiary to avail treatment at any empanelled hospital anywhere in India regardless of home state, is central to understanding why full state-wise adoption matters for it to function as intended.
• Since health is a State List subject under the Seventh Schedule, PM-JAY's implementation necessarily depends on state cooperation, making it a useful example of cooperative and competitive federalism in social sector delivery.