NEW DELHI: West Bengal has finally joined the Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB PM-JAY), marking the nationwide adoption of the flagship health assurance programme that provides cover of up to ₹5 lakh per eligible family per year. Mint explains the significance of the state’s inclusion in the scheme.
Why is the addition of West Bengal to AB PM-JAY significant?
West Bengal was the only state that hadn’t come on board the world's largest health assurance programme. The other holdout states Odisha and Delhi joined in 2025.
According to West Bengal’s chief secretary Manoj Kumar Agarwal, the new state government that took over on 9 May issued a directive to immediately onboard all pending central government public welfare schemes.
“This directive will positively impact hundreds of previously stalled departments, with the health sector being prioritized,” Agarwal said.
The newly elected BJP government signed the memorandum of understanding on 8 June and West Bengal became the 36th state/Union Territory to adopt the scheme. This completes the nationwide rollout of the scheme that was launched in September 2018 and marks a monumental leap toward Universal Health Coverage.
How does AB PM-JAY coverage benefit West Bengal’s migrant workforce?
A key feature of the AB PM-JAY scheme is national portability. According to Agarwal, 5 million to 10 million citizens, hailing mainly from Malda, Murshidabad and Nadia districts, migrate outside West Bengal to work in states including Kerala, Karnataka, Haryana, Punjab and Delhi.
Earlier, West Bengal’s local health card did not have any operational value outside the state’s borders. In contrast, the new Ayushman Bharat card ensures that migrant workers can seamlessly check into any empanelled facility near their place of work across the country and receive free treatment. Their benefits follow them digitally across state borders, completely free of domestic red tape or geographic restrictions.
How many people in West Bengal will benefit from this scheme?
The scheme will benefit about 60 million people in 14.3 million families in West Bengal. This includes 12.4 million vulnerable families, alongside about 306,000 families of frontline healthcare workers. About 1.6 million families of senior citizens aged 70 and above will also receive comprehensive health coverage, irrespective of their socio-economic status.
West Bengal has faced a major challenge to its healthcare landscape due to a massive outbound medical tourism trend. The chief secretary noted that railway officials, MPs and MLAs were constantly overwhelmed by requests from citizens seeking travel quotas to access specialized care outside the state.
Patients from the state travel regularly to major institutions such as CMC Vellore, Chennai Apollo, Tata Memorial Mumbai, AIIMS Bhubaneswar, AIIMS Delhi, Medanta Gurgaon, NIMS Hyderabad, Sankara Nethralaya and LV Prasad Hyderabad and were forced to fund complex treatments entirely out of their pockets.
What immediate steps is the National Health Authority taking in West Bengal?
Sunil Barnwal, CEO of the National Health Authority, said the immediate plans focus on ensuring infrastructure readiness by deploying digital frameworks and IT platforms to enable seamless, paperless and cashless transactions. Additionally, it is initiating the creation of Ayushman cards, carrying out beneficiary verification drives and onboarding local hospitals.
“With West Bengal on board, the coverage of PM-JAY will increase. We will get a larger population covered under Ayushman Bharat and will be a step in the direction of Universal Health Coverage,” Barnwal said.
What kind of financial impact will this have on families and the healthcare economy?
Medical emergencies have historically driven vulnerable Indian families into poverty due to the high expenditure burden they have to bear. Across India, AB PM-JAY has already authorized over 120 million treatments worth more than ₹1.82 trillion, pushing national personal medical expenditure down from 64.6% of total health expenses to 43.4%.
The central government is expected to allot almost ₹1,000 crore annually to fund the scheme in West Bengal, which will strengthen public and private medical infrastructure in the state.