West Bengal secures over RS 3,000 Crore for healthcare upgradation

West Bengal has secured over ₹3,000 crore from the Centre to upgrade its public healthcare system under the National Health Mission and Ayushman Bharat scheme. The state plans to begin Ayushman card distribution from July and expand coverage to millions, including migrant workers

Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari on Saturday announced that his government has received a sanction of around Rs 3,000 crore in the current fiscal from the Centre for revamping the public healthcare sector in the state, of which Rs 500 crore has already been transferred. Cards for the Centre’s Ayushman Bharat health insurance scheme are likely to be distributed to beneficiaries of the state from July this year, the CM said.

“We have received a sanction of Rs 2,103 crore from the Union Health Ministry for the National Health Mission for the current financial year, a fourth of which, Rs 500 crore, has already been transferred by the Centre,” Adhikari said in a virtual press meet from the state secretariat, Nabanna. The Centre has also allocated its share of the Rs 976 crore for the Ayushman Bharat scheme for this fiscal, he said.

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“In all, we have received a sanction of over Rs 3,000 crore, of which we have already received Rs 500 crore,” Adhikari added. The chief minister addressed the media after he held an hour-long virtual meeting with Union Health Minister JP Nadda.

Adhikari said about six crore holders of the Swasthya Sathi cards issued by the erstwhile TMC government in Bengal will be transferred to the ambit of the Ayushman Bharat scheme in the first phase, and the number of beneficiaries will subsequently increase.

Opportunities will also be made available to fresh applicants who did not opt for the Swasthya Sathi cards, he added. “We are hoping to start the distribution of Ayushman Bharat cards from July, the enrolment work for which has already begun,” Adhikari said.

The chief minister said that the state is planning to ink an agreement with the Centre in Delhi for inclusion in the Ayushman Arogya Mandir network in the first week of June to extend the benefits of Ayushman Bharat to the migrant residents of the state.

“Over one crore migrants from Bengal stay outside the state for work or education purposes. The agreement, which will be signed at an event in the national capital in the presence of ministers and bureaucrats of both the state and the Centre, will extend the Ayushman benefit to the migrants as well,” Adhikari.

The Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY) provides health coverage of Rs 5 lakh per family per year for secondary and tertiary care hospitalisation. The CM also announced that the health department would ramp up recruitment of doctors, nurses and other healthcare service workers in state-run health centres.

“The recruitment rate in this area by the previous government was abysmally low  53 per cent as against the national rate of 98 per cent. We will fill up these positions in the next three months on a priority basis by means of a transparent recruitment policy,” he said.

Adhikari alleged that the policy of non-cooperation and opposition with the Centre, followed by the erstwhile Mamata Banerjee government, had led to an all-pervasive atmosphere of negativity in the public healthcare sector, the cost of which was borne by the general public.

“The people of Bengal were deprived of the benefits of Central schemes because of the complete breakdown of government-to-government communication during the previous era. We will bring about a landmark change in that sphere and pass on the benefits to the people,” he added.