Eight Years After Its Launch at Ranchi, Ayushman Bharat PM-JAY Has Funded 13.25 Crore Hospital Admissions Worth ₹2.03 Lakh Crore, and 48.51 Crore People Hold Its Cards

Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana, known as PM-JAY, pays for hospital treatment for families that qualify, up to ₹5 lakh per family per year, with no cash handed over at the hospital. The Press Information Bureau’s explainer of 22 September 2026, posted a day before the scheme’s eighth anniversary, says 48.51 crore people hold Ayushman cards (as of 21 September 2026). It also says the scheme has funded 13.25 crore hospital admissions worth ₹2.03 lakh crore at more than 38,000 empanelled public and private hospitals, meaning hospitals approved to treat scheme patients (as of 31 August 2026).

The bureau counts admissions, not people, so a patient admitted twice counts twice. Every figure below carries the date the government attached to it, because the totals move month to month and different releases are dated differently.

How the scheme began at Ranchi on 23 September 2018

The bureau’s archived text of the Prime Minister’s speech shows the scheme was launched from Ranchi on 23 September 2018, with matching events in more than 400 districts. The speech described a scheme that would give health assurance of up to ₹5 lakh to more than 50 crore people, and said 13,000 hospitals had been associated with it within six months.

A Rajya Sabha reply of 12 February 2019 sets out the design. The cover is cashless and paperless at any empanelled hospital in India, with no limit on family size, and the scheme is “entitlement based”: it involves no enrolment and no plastic card, and a hospital provides care once it has established the beneficiary’s identity. About 1,393 treatment packages were available then. The explainer of 22 September 2026 gives 1,961 procedures across 27 medical specialties, and the August 2026 factsheet says over 40,000 claims are processed every day.

The National Health Authority runs the scheme nationally. States choose how to deliver it, through an insurance company, a state trust or a mix. Costs are shared 60:40 between the Centre and most states, 90:10 for the North-Eastern states, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Jammu and Kashmir, and fully funded by the Centre for Union Territories without a legislature. The Union Budget estimate for 2026-27 is ₹9,500 crore. How a central share reaches a state account is covered in tuput’s piece on centrally sponsored schemes.

Who qualifies, and how the list grew

Eligible families were first picked from the Socio-Economic Caste Census of 2011. In rural areas the bureau lists criteria such as a household with one room and kucha (not permanent) walls and roof, no adult aged 16 to 59, a female head with no adult male in that age band, a disabled member with no able-bodied adult, Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe households, and landless households living on casual manual labour. In cities, 11 occupations qualify, among them domestic workers, street vendors, construction workers and sanitation workers.

The February 2019 reply put the starting base at 10.74 crore families, about 50 crore people. A Lok Sabha reply of 28 March 2025 says that in January 2022 the Centre revised the base to 12 crore families, on the strength of 11.7 percent decadal population growth, and let states verify beneficiaries against other databases of similar profile. The Cabinet release of 11 September 2024 gives a slightly different figure, 12.34 crore families or 55 crore individuals. The March 2025 reply adds that many states have widened their lists at their own cost.

In March 2024 the scheme added about 37 lakh families of ASHA workers, anganwadi workers and anganwadi helpers. The explainer counts more than 44.81 lakh cards for them as of 21 September 2026. It also lists groups covered through other programmes, including building and construction workers and their dependants, road accident victims, sanitation workers under the NAMASTE scheme and particularly vulnerable tribal groups.

Everyone aged 70 and above, from 29 October 2024

The Cabinet approved cover for all senior citizens aged 70 and above, irrespective of income, on 11 September 2024. The Prime Minister had announced the plan in April 2024. The 28 March 2025 reply gives 29 October 2024 as the date the benefit began, for about 6 crore senior citizens in 4.5 crore families.

Seniors receive a new, separate card. Those in families already covered get an extra top-up of up to ₹5 lakh a year for themselves alone, which they need not share with family members under 70. Other seniors get ₹5 lakh on a family basis. People on the Central Government Health Scheme, the Ex-Servicemen Contributory Health Scheme or Ayushman CAPF can stay where they are or move to PM-JAY, and the Cabinet release says seniors with private insurance or Employees’ State Insurance are eligible too.

The Rajya Sabha reply of 17 March 2026 counts 1.14 crore Vay Vandana cards as of 28 February 2026. The September explainer counts more than 1.36 crore as of 21 September 2026. The August factsheet adds that over 13.84 lakh treatments worth ₹3,000 crore had been availed by senior citizens.

The cards, admissions and hospitals, with their dates

Cards: 35.4 crore on 9 September 2024, more than 36.9 crore on 24 March 2025, 43.52 crore on 28 February 2026, over 45.5 crore on 12 August 2026 and 48.51 crore on 21 September 2026. The March 2026 total includes 1.14 crore senior citizen cards.

Admissions authorised: 7.79 crore worth about ₹1.07 lakh crore as of 9 September 2024, 11.69 crore worth ₹1.73 lakh crore on 28 February 2026, 12.69 crore worth ₹1.92 lakh crore on 30 June 2026, and 13.25 crore worth ₹2.03 lakh crore on 31 August 2026.

Hospitals: 30,529 in September 2024 (17,063 public and 13,466 private), and 36,229 on 28 February 2026 (19,483 public and 16,746 private). The Rajya Sabha reply of 4 August 2026 gives 37,413 as of 30 June 2026, the 12 August factsheet gives 38,466, and the explainer says over 38,000 as of 31 August 2026. These differ because the dates differ. A reply of 3 February 2026 adds that more than 15,733 private hospitals were empanelled on 31 December 2025, of which 1,259 are in aspirational districts, and links a public search list at hem.nha.gov.in.

Government hospitals with inpatient services are deemed empanelled, and the March 2025 reply says they are paid at the same rates as private ones. It also says hospitals cannot deny treatment to an eligible patient.

Treatment in another state

Portability is part of the design from the first year. The 2019 reply says a beneficiary from one state can use an empanelled hospital anywhere in the country. The September 2024 bureau document counts 11.9 lakh hospitalisations worth ₹3,100 crore authorised under portability. The August 2026 factsheet counts 29.05 lakh worth more than ₹8,383.97 crore as of 30 June 2026.

In September 2024 the scheme ran in 33 states and Union Territories, all but Delhi, West Bengal and Odisha. Odisha signed on 13 January 2025 as the 34th. West Bengal signed on 8 June 2026 as the 36th, and the bureau described the signing as completing nationwide adoption. At the ceremony the Union Health Minister said portability would let West Bengal’s migrant workers get cashless treatment at empanelled hospitals in the states where they work.

The pillars around the hospital cover

The bureau presents PM-JAY as one of four schemes. The others are the Ayushman Arogya Mandirs, which are primary-care clinics (over 1.86 lakh functional as of 12 August 2026, with a cumulative footfall above 540 crore), the infrastructure mission PM-ABHIM, and the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission, begun in September 2021.

The digital mission issues ABHA numbers, health IDs that the bureau likens to the Aadhaar number, which tuput has covered in its piece on the world’s largest ID system. As of 17 September 2026 the explainer counts over 97.61 crore ABHA IDs, 119.95 crore health records linked to them, more than 5.78 lakh verified health facilities and over 11 lakh registered health professionals. The August factsheet adds that 41.3 crore people have been screened for diabetes under the national programme for non-communicable diseases, a condition that a Pune study of mothers, babies and diabetes has followed across generations.

What studies have measured

The Economic Survey 2020-21 compared states that had adopted PM-JAY with those that had not, using the National Family Health Surveys of 2015-16 and 2019-20. It reports that household insurance coverage rose 54 percent in adopting states and fell 10 percent elsewhere, and that infant mortality fell 20 percent against 12 percent. The Survey concluded that PM-JAY had a positive effect. This is the finance ministry’s own analysis, and its follow-up data end in 2019-20.

Divya Parmar and colleagues surveyed more than 57,000 eligible people in six states and reported in Health Systems & Reform in 2023 that PM-JAY was not associated with more hospitalisations. They found a 13 percent relative fall in out-of-pocket spending (significant at the 10 percent level) and a 21 percent fall in catastrophic spending, both driven by private hospitals, and a 4.6 percentage point rise in the chance of using a private facility. The authors describe associations, not proven effects.

Pritam Halder and colleagues studied 6,695 cancer patients at seven centres in six states for The Lancet Regional Health Southeast Asia. Median time from diagnosis to treatment was 20 days. Patients diagnosed from 2018 started treatment faster than those diagnosed from 1995 to 2017 (adjusted hazard ratio 1.36), and the ratio was 1.90 for the 553 patients enrolled in PM-JAY. The authors note the scheme rolled out unevenly, that supply-side factors were not captured, and that cancer stage was unrecorded for 47 percent of patients.

Gaurav Jyani and colleagues modelled a 100-bed private district hospital in Applied Health Economics and Health Policy in 2025 and estimated it would break even in its fourth year of operation at PM-JAY package rates. They note earlier work found 42 percent of packages were priced at launch to cover only half their cost, and that PM-JAY rates are often quoted as 40 to 50 percent below market prices.

Two surveys from December 2019 to February 2020 looked at uptake early on. Diletta Parisi and colleagues found about 62 percent of 11,618 respondents in six states had heard of PM-JAY. Swati Srivastava and colleagues found that about one-fifth of eligible individuals in a sample of 50,002 people in five states had verified their eligibility within a year of launch, and that nearly 38 percent of respondents who completed verification did not receive their card immediately.

The Rajya Sabha reply of 4 August 2026 cites National Health Accounts estimates that out-of-pocket spending fell from 62.6 percent of total health expenditure in 2014-15 to 43.4 percent in 2022-23. The reply attributes the fall to higher public investment and schemes such as PM-JAY together, and the figure covers all health spending.

Where to check a hospital or lodge a complaint

Empanelled private hospitals can be searched at hem.nha.gov.in/search, the link the Health Ministry gave Parliament on 3 February 2026. Under the scheme’s three-tier grievance system, a complaint can go to the district, state or national level, through the Centralized Grievance Redressal Management System portal or the call centre number 14555.