Loading…
As on 30 June 2026, Ayushman Bharat - Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana had authorised 12.69 crore hospital admissions amounting to Rs 1.92 lakh crore through a network of 37,413 public and private hospitals.
The scheme provides Rs 5 lakh per family per year for secondary and tertiary care hospitalisation to 12 crore economically vulnerable families, the bottom 40 per cent of India's population.
It was expanded in March 2024 to about 37 lakh families of ASHAs, Anganwadi Workers and Anganwadi Helpers, and again in October 2024 to 6 crore senior citizens aged 70 and above across 4.5 crore families, irrespective of socio-economic status.
National Health Accounts Estimates 2022-23 record out-of-pocket expenditure falling from 62.6 per cent of total health expenditure in 2014-15 to 43.4 per cent in 2022-23.
The National and State Fact Sheets of the sixth round of the National Family Health Survey, NFHS-6 (2023-24), were released on 29 May 2026.
Out-of-pocket expenditure is the share of total health spending that households pay directly at the point of care, rather than through taxes, insurance or an employer. It is the single most revealing health-financing statistic, because it measures not how much a country spends on health but who bears the risk. Where OOPE is high, an unexpected hospitalisation is also a financial shock, and a substantial number of households fall below the poverty line because of medical bills. This is why the release pairs the PM-JAY admission figures with the National Health Accounts finding that OOPE fell from 62.6 per cent of total health expenditure in 2014-15 to 43.4 per cent in 2022-23: the admissions number shows scheme activity, while the OOPE share shows whether the burden actually shifted off households. The Ministry attributes the decline to both increased public investment in health and the expansion of publicly financed insurance such as AB-PMJAY.
Simple Analogy: Total health spending tells you how big the bill is; out-of-pocket share tells you who is holding the wallet when it arrives.
Provide cashless secondary and tertiary hospitalisation cover to economically vulnerable families and reduce out-of-pocket expenditure
Key: Rs 5 lakh per family per year for 12 crore families; expanded in March 2024 to ASHA, Anganwadi Worker and Helper families and in October 2024 to all citizens aged 70 and above regardless of income; delivered through 37,413 empanelled public and private hospitals
Provide data on population, health and family welfare, including fertility, family planning, maternal and child health, nutrition, morbidity and women's empowerment
Key: The sixth round covers 2023-24, with National and State/UT Fact Sheets released on 29 May 2026. Indicators for the Fact Sheets were finalised on the recommendations of a Technical Advisory Committee and restricted to key health and family welfare indicators
Avoid inconsistencies arising from fragmented and unharmonised data across different official sources
Key: The Technical Advisory Committee included representatives of the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, the Ministry of Women and Child Development, MoSPI, the Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, NITI Aayog and the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities
Improve the reliability of anaemia prevalence estimates
Key: The Ministry decided to adopt anaemia prevalence figures from an independent ICMR survey using the gold standard intravenous method for haemoglobin testing, rather than from the NFHS itself
The implementing agency for AB-PMJAY; the National Health Agency was reconstituted as the National Health Authority on 2 January 2019
The nodal agency designated by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare for conducting the National Family Health Survey
Conducting the independent survey whose anaemia prevalence figures, based on the gold standard intravenous method for haemoglobin testing, the Ministry has decided to adopt
Recommended the list of indicators for the NFHS-6 Fact Sheets in line with the Government's data harmonisation initiative
PM-JAY is the assurance arm of Ayushman Bharat, and the fall in out-of-pocket expenditure is the metric against which progress towards universal coverage is judged
The October 2024 extension to everyone aged 70 and above, regardless of income, marks a shift from purely means-tested targeting to age-based universalism within the scheme
Bringing ASHAs, Anganwadi Workers and Helpers into the scheme in March 2024 covers the very workers who deliver national health programmes at household level
Restricting NFHS-6 Fact Sheets to harmonised key indicators, and moving anaemia estimates to an ICMR survey, reflects a broader effort to reconcile conflicting numbers across official data sources
GS Paper 2 > Governance > Health; Social Justice > Vulnerable Sections
General Awareness > Government Schemes
General Awareness > Government Schemes and Insurance
General Awareness > Government Schemes
Ayushman Bharat and NFHS are among the most frequently examined health topics across UPSC, SSC and banking examinations
The share of health spending paid directly by households at the point of care, which fell from 62.6 per cent in 2014-15 to 43.4 per cent in 2022-23
The official estimates of how much India spends on health and from which sources, the basis for the out-of-pocket expenditure figures
Specialist and highly specialist hospital care, the levels covered by PM-JAY, as distinct from primary care
National Family Health Survey — the large-scale survey on population, health and nutrition, whose sixth round covers 2023-24
The venous blood testing method for haemoglobin, which the Ministry will use through an ICMR survey for anaemia prevalence instead of NFHS estimates