Ayushman Bharat PM-JAY: How the Health Assurance Scheme Works

West Bengal signed a memorandum of understanding on June 8, 2026 to join the Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB PM-JAY), becoming the 36th State or Union Territory to adopt the scheme. With this, the flagship health assurance programme now covers the whole country. Earlier holdout States had joined in 2025, and West Bengal's inclusion completes the nationwide rollout of a scheme first launched in September 2018.

AB PM-JAY provides health cover of up to five lakh rupees per eligible family each year for secondary and tertiary hospital care. It is aimed at poor and vulnerable families, and also covers senior citizens aged seventy and above regardless of income. Treatment at an empanelled hospital is meant to be cashless and paperless for the beneficiary. The scheme is run by the National Health Authority, which handles beneficiary verification, the issue of Ayushman cards, and the onboarding of hospitals.

A major strength of the scheme is national portability. The Ayushman card works at empanelled hospitals anywhere in the country, not just in the cardholder's home State. This matters in West Bengal, where, officials say, several million workers from districts such as Malda, Murshidabad, and Nadia migrate to States like Kerala, Karnataka, Haryana, Punjab, and Delhi for work. A purely local health card had no value outside the State; the Ayushman card lets these workers receive free treatment near their place of work.

The scale of the programme is large. In West Bengal, it is expected to benefit about 60 million people across 14.3 million families, including vulnerable households, families of frontline health workers, and senior citizens. Nationally, the scheme has authorised more than 120 million treatments and is seen as a step toward Universal Health Coverage, the goal of ensuring everyone can access health services without facing financial hardship.

For aspirants, AB PM-JAY is a high-value topic under social sector schemes. Important points to remember are the five lakh rupee annual family cover, the focus on poor and vulnerable groups plus senior citizens, the role of the National Health Authority, the cashless and portable nature of the card, and the link to the larger aim of Universal Health Coverage.