Mahaling advises inclusion of Ayush packages in Ayushman scheme

Bhubaneswar: Health minister Mukesh Mahaling on Monday advised senior health department officials of the Centre, along with states and union territories to deliberate on the possibilities of including Ayush packages in the Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (ABPMJAY), along with modern medicine packages. He said this at the 2-day national-level chintan shivir on ABPMJAY and and Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM), which started here on Monday.“I want to suggest the officials and participants to discuss in the chintan shivir how to formulate packages for treatment of patients under the Ayush system, including ayurvedic and homeopathic packages. Now we have allopathic (modern medicine) packages,” he added.He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi was giving importance to the Ayush system along with the allopathic (modern medicine) system. “Under the ‘One nation, one health’ programme, Ayush medicines should be included along with modern medicine. We need to try to include both Ayush and allopathic medicines for integrated health,” said the health minister.ABPMJAY was launched in Odisha on April 11, 2025. “Within 9 months of its inauguration, Odisha stood 1st in distribution of ABPMJAY cards to eligible persons, and 5th in generation of Ayushman Vaya Vandana Yojana (AVVY) cards for senior citizens aged 70 and above,” said the minister.NHA CEO Sunil Kumar Barnwal said the digital platform of ABPMJAY and ABDM was designed in such a manner that many similar service delivery systems could be onboarded with it. “The system keeps up a uniform and integrated pan-Indian health service delivery standard. The large database that would be generated through ABDM would be very useful in disease mapping and disease surveillance, along with preventive and promotive healthcare,” he added. He also said that privacy, trust and security of data in ABDM was ensured to the highest degree.The 2-day Chintan Shivir is slated to include 6 sessions, including 5 technical sessions. After the inaugural session, deliberations were held on topics such as progress of ABPMJAY in different states, the Ayushman App, online modules for card creation, the action plan for ABDM, e-shushrut@clinic, the Arogya Setu App, the drug registry, the methodology of implementation of ABDM in empanelled hospitals, and the national anti-fraud system to check and prevent any possible unfair practice.In the inaugural session, 3 important MoUs were signed: an MOU between NHA and BHASINI for multilingual access for health service; NHA and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, for collaborative research; and NHA and the National Accreditation Board of Hospitals (NABH) for upkeep of national standards in health facilities.