Seeking Aadhar, ration card database from states to expand pool of Ayushman Bharat-PMJAY beneficiaries: NHA

The National Health Authority, which operationalises Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Aarogya Yojana, on February 14 said that it has undertaken an exercise to integrate beneficiary database under different schemes to upgrade its own database for the better implementation of the scheme.

Under AB-PMJAY, health insurance of up to Rs 5 lakh per family per year is provided for secondary and tertiary care-related hospitalisations. Nearly 10.74 crore beneficiary families under the scheme have been identified from the Socio-Economic Caste Census (SECC) of 2011 based on 6 deprivation and 11 occupational criteria across rural and urban areas, respectively.

The majority of beneficiaries from SECC, 2011 are also eligible for benefits under the National Food Security Portal (NFSA).

The authority said that it is working on integrating the SECC, 2011 beneficiary database with NFSA, which will enable beneficiaries to seek information regarding their entitlement under the AB PM-JAY using their ration card number.

“NHA is also working on a proposal to use fair price shops or ration shops for providing information related to the scheme and entitlement under the scheme to eligible beneficiaries,” said a statement issued by the Health Ministry.

“This will provide an additional avenue to beneficiaries along with the existing Common Service Center, UTI-ITSL for card creation. This will make the beneficiary identification process very convenient.”

The NHA added that the existing beneficiary data available with various government welfare schemes can be meaningfully utilised only if a common identifier is available.

“Aadhaar being a common identity across the majority of government databases will enable this integration. Further, Aadhaar also ensures certainty regarding beneficiary identification through e-KYC. e-KYC enables paperless delivery of services in a targeted manner.”

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), as per the statement, has issued several office memorandums over the last few months, enabling sharing of Aadhaar, collected under any scheme, among different government departments.

The Department of Food and Public Distribution (DoFPD) too asked states in January this year to provide necessary assistance and cooperation for sharing of the NFSA ration card data along with the corresponding Aadhaar with NHA.

The ministry said that none of the states have expressed any reservation to NHA in sharing the data and the process of database sharing has already commenced in several states.

The onus of ensuring the compliance of various provisions and regulations regarding data protection, data storage and data privacy and in particular, seeking consent will lie with the user department or NHA, the statement added.