What is it?

• It is a centre funded scheme to provide health care assurance to 10 crore people of India.
• It is an entitlement-based scheme not enrolment which means the beneficiaries are based on Socio-Economic caste census.
• So, people should not get duped by culprits who will assure you that we will provide you this scheme.
• The scheme was dedicated by the PM to “Pandita Rambai Singh” and in the memory of “Pandit Deen Dayal Uphaday”.

Pandita Rambai Singh:

• Pandita Ramabai Sarasvati was an Indiansocial reformer, a champion for the emancipation of women, and a pioneer in education. She was the first woman to be accorded the titles of Pandita as a Sanskrit scholar and Sarasvati after being examined by the faculty of the University of Calcutta
• Pandita Ramabai was a social worker, scholar and a champion of women’s rights, freedom and education. Pandita Ramabai participated in the freedom movement and was one of the 10 women delegates of the Congress session of 1889.

Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya:

• He was an RSS thinker and co-founder of the political party Bharatiya Jana Sangh, the forerunner of Bharatiya Janata Party. He became president of the Jana Sangh in December 1967. His tenure did not play any bigger role. He contested the Lok Sabhaelection and lost.
• Upadhyaya conceived the political philosophy Integral Humanism. This philosophy advocates the simultaneous and integrated program of the body, mind and intellect and soul of each human being. His philosophy of Integral Humanism is a synthesis of the material and the spiritual, the individual and the collective. He visualised for India a decentralised polity and self-reliant economy with the village as the base.
• Deendayal Upadhyaya was convinced that India as an independent nation could not rely upon Western concepts like individualism, democracy, socialism, communism or capitalism and was of the view that the Indian polity after Independencehas been raised upon these superficial Western foundations and not rooted in the traditions of India’s ancient culture.

Issues

The private sector participation is most crucial for the success of this scheme. There are instances where private-sector deny health care under government scheme.

There are some packages that are completely prohibited under this scheme. They are:-

• Appendix surgery
• Caesarean delivery (only accepted in case of emergency if a public-sector hospital recommends)
• Hysterectomy
• Mental illness.

They are not included so because in the past the private sector has highly misused it.

• Economic Impact: – India’s fiscal deficit will widen if spending in such huge populist scheme but however it is considered as an investment in human resource.