Yet another major government scheme has been launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday. The launch of Pradhan Mantri Jan Aarogya Yojana (PMJAY) is targeted to provide health assurance worth five lakh rupees each to 10 crore families. Political commentator are terming it as game changer initiative just months before the election. No doubt it is a pro-people scheme and if properly implemented will definitely help the poor. However going by the past experience certain degree of uncertainty always loom over the govt schemes. In the last 4 years, several initiatives like Jan Dhan Yojana etc were launched with much fan fare. But success is questionable.
In Arunachal Pradesh, coinciding with the nation-wide launch of ‘Ayushman Bharat, Chief Minister Pema Khandu dedicated the Chief Minister Aarogya Arunachal Yojana (CMAAY), a universal healthcare scheme of the state government. This is believed to be upgraded version of previous CM Universal health insurance scheme. The state’s healthcare scheme will provide coverage to those beneficiaries left out in the PMJAY scheme. The earlier CM health insurance scheme launched by the Nabam Tuki lead Congress government in the state was quite popular among the masses. However it was discontinued when late Kalikho Pul became the CM. People of Arunachal took lot of pain to register themselves under CM Universal health insurance scheme. But now it has become useless. It is unfortunate that whenever there is change of government whether at centre or in state, the government schemes are discontinued. It severely affects the beneficiaries.