Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Saturday rolled out the ‘Ayushman CAPF’ scheme, extending the benefit of the central health insurance programme to the personnel of all armed police forces in the country, PTI reports.

In his visit to Guwahati, Shah distributed the CAPF heath cards amoung the personnel. He introduced the scheme as a means for the ‘jawaans’ across Assam Rifles, Border Security Force (BSF), Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), National Security Guard (NSG), and Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) to avail services of 24,000 hospitals across the country.

Aiming to implement the scheme by May 1, the Union Home Minister said, “Under this scheme, around 10 lakh CAPF jawans and officers, and around 50 lakh relatives and family members of them will be able to avail medical benefits.”

What is the scheme?

With an objective of bringing the serving personnel under the Ayushman Bharat: Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana’ (AB PM-JAY), the Ayushman CAPF is a joint initiative by the Ministry of Home Affairs and National Health Authority. The government website stated that, “The services will be available in all CGHS and PM-JAY empanelled private hospitals in a phased manner.”

Highlighting certain key features of the Ayushman CAPF, the website promotes the centre’s goal to make all comprehensive treatment (OPD, IPD) and follow-ups at private hospitals completely cashless and paperless. The authorities will also set up a call center for grievance redressal.

An MoU was signed between the National Health Authority (NHA) and the Union Home Ministry in presence of Shah, Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai and state Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma at the CRPF Group Centre in Guwahati.