Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the flagship healthcare scheme from Ranchi.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said with the launch of mega heath scheme 'Ayushman Bharat', the dream of RSS ideologue Deendayal Upadhyaya to uplift the poor, has been fulfilled.
Launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Ranchi, the scheme aims to provide coverage of Rs 5 lakh to every family annually and is likely to benefit more than 50 crore people for secondary and tertiary care hospitalisation through a network of empaneled healthcare providers.
Speaking at Baba Raghav Das Medical College in Gorakhpur, Yogi Adityanath said, "Today the dream of Deendayal Upadhyaya Ji has come true as the man at the bottom of the social order will be able to get medical treatment under Ayushman Bharat scheme without any discrimination. Poor people won't die...due to lack of money."
On Sunday, Yogi Adityanath gave golden e-cards to five beneficiaries of the health scheme, including a 12-year-old boy.
"The poor have to sell their farm, house and jewellery for medical treatment. But after this scheme, it will not happen ", he said.
Recalling the deplorable condition of the encephalitis ward at the medical college in 1998, when Yogi Adityanath became a member of Parliament from Gorakhpur for the first time, he said toilets were choked and four children would share one bed.
"We demanded free treatment, ward and other facilities."
"In 2004-05, the then health minister gave me one lakh vaccines. When I told him that was inadequate, he was shocked. He asked me to use them in the district only. I refused and told him that vaccines are required for entire eastern Uttar Pradesh," Yogi Adityanath said.