New Delhi (Agency): India’s main auditing body, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), has expressed concerns over the way the Information, Education and Communication (IEC) plan was handled under the Ayushman Bharat–Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY). This health scheme gives families a yearly health cover of up to Rs 5 lakhs. It makes the hospital process easy by not needing any money or papers at the time of service.
A recent report by the CAG, which was shared with Parliament, showed that the National Health Authority (NHA) spent Rs 64.07 crore on IEC activities from 2018-21. But the CAG found some issues.
The report said: “During 2018-19 to 2020-21, NHA spent 64.07 crore on IEC activities. But, they did not have a special budget for this. So, we could not check if they spent too much. The NHA also didn’t give information about their IEC plan at the Central level. Without this information, we could not see if the IEC activities were done well and reached their goals.”
Furthermore, the report noticed that the NHA didn’t explain how they checked the IEC activities in different Indian states. The goal of these activities was to tell people about the scheme’s benefits and to get more people to join.
The CAG report shared more details: “In seven states like Chhattisgarh and Uttar Pradesh, an IEC cell was made. But in 12 states, like Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat, no IEC Cell was made. For some states, we did not get any information.”
It was also found that in some states, the money spent on IEC activities was much less than what was planned. For example, in states like Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh, the spending was between zero to 20.24% of their budget. This is less than the planned 25%.
The CAG report suggested improvements: “NHA should try harder to tell people about the scheme. They should make sure that State Health Agencies spend the right amount of money to let people know about the scheme.”
In simple words, while AB-PMJAY is a good health plan, the way it was communicated to the public needs improvement. The CAG report hopes to guide better efforts in the future.
