West Bengal exits from Ayushman Bharat Scheme

West Bengal, Jan 12: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday announced that her All India Trinamool Congress party will withdraw from the Central government’s flagship scheme ‘Ayushman Bharat’, which aimed at providing annual health cover of Rs 5 lakh to over 10.74 crore families across the country.

While announcing the withdrawal from the Ayushman Bharat scheme, the TMC chief said that West Bengal will not contribute 40 per cent of its funds to Ayushman Bharat scheme. She further asserted that the Central government will have to pay the full amount for it in order to run the scheme.

In the last year, West Bengal, Bihar and Chhattisgarh were the largest beneficiaries of Ayushman Bharat scheme. Interestingly, West Bengal alone contributed Rs 193.34 crore to the total government budget of Rs 798.34 crore for the health scheme. Further, Rs 16.78 crore were alotted from Mamata Banerjee’s state for administrative expenses.

Earlier, before the official announcement of Ayushman Bharat scheme, the TMC government had vociferously opposed it but eventually signed the Memorandum of Understanding with the Centre.

The Centre merged the Ayushman Bharat scheme in West Bengal with the state’s Swasthya Sathi Scheme, where the state government provided 40 per cent of the total cost. In West Bengal alone, 40 lakh families were provided with an annual health cover of Rs 5 lakh.

The scheme was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on September 23 last year.