The government has taken a big decision regarding ESI. Now approval has been given to bring together Ayushman Bharat PM-Jan Arogya Yojana with ESI. The Medical Benefits Council of the Employees' State Insurance Corporation on Friday approved the integration of the Employees' State Insurance (ESI) scheme with the Ayushman Bharat PM-Jan Arogya Yojana (JAY) to increase healthcare access for beneficiaries. The Labor Ministry said in a statement that the decision to integrate the two schemes was taken in the 86th meeting of the Medical Benefits Council held at the Employees' State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) headquarters. The meeting was presided over by ESIC Director General (DG) Ashok Kumar Singh.
Ayushman Bharat PM-JAY is the world's largest health insurance scheme. Its objective is to provide health insurance of Rs 5 lakh per year to more than 12 crore poor families (about 55 crore beneficiaries). The Council also approved the implementation of the Common Support Mission (CSM) for the states. The objective of CSM is to improve and strengthen the medical service delivery system of ESI in the States with a focus on insured person centric approach.
Further, the Council approved starting of annual preventive health check-ups and awareness camps for the beneficiaries, with a focus on early diagnosis of lifestyle disorders and detection of nutritional deficiencies in insured persons/women/transgenders. Recently, under the PM-Jan Arogya Yojana, it has been announced to provide insurance cover to people above 70 years of age. The government's objective is to bring more and more people of the country under the ambit of insurance. According to the information, under PM-Jan Arogya Yojana, a total of 29,648 hospitals including 12,696 private hospitals have been linked with this scheme.
