Ayushman coverage to all over 70 years, roll out of U-WIN in health ministry's 100-day agenda

New Delhi: Extending the Ayushman Bharat coverage to everyone aged above 70 years and the pan-India roll out of the U-WIN portal to digitise routine vaccinations are among the highlights of Narendra Modi's new government's 100-day agenda for the Union health ministry.

In a brief interaction with senior officials after taking charge of the ministry on Tuesday, J P Nadda, who is also the BJP president, asked them to focus on the agenda, sources said.

Prime Minister Modi while releasing the BJP's Lok Sabha poll manifesto in April had announced that senior citizens above 70 years of age and the transgender community will be brought under the ambit of the Centre's health scheme Ayushman Bharat Yojana.

Launching the National Health Claims Exchange to ensure inter-operability and faster processing of health insurance claims, use of drone services to deliver medical essentials from AIIMS and other Institutes of National Importance in difficult terrains and providing cashless treatment services to ex-servicemen also feature among the 14 agenda items for the ministry, the official sources told PTI.

The other key areas of focus in the 100-day plan include ease of doing business -- 'tatkal' issuance of licence or registration in select food businesses under the FSSAI, deployment of Arogya Maitri Cubes in central government hospitals to meet health emergencies, providing financial support to the Banaras Hindu University's Institute of Medical Sciences on the lines of AIIMS, and making operational the National Medical Register.

Extending the Ayushman Bharat scheme to everyone aged 70 years and above is one of the top priorities of the government, the sources said.

The modalities of the proposal are being worked out. Once finalised, the proposal will be sent to the Expenditure Finance Committee for approval of allocation of funds before being sent to the Cabinet, they said.

The U-WIN portal -- based on the Co-WIN Covid vaccination application's design -- for maintaining electronic registry of routine immunisations under the Universal Immunisation Programme (UIP) is at present being run on a pilot mode in two districts of each state or a Union Territory.

The platform captures each and every vaccination event of children and pregnant women under the UIP. It is linked with Co-WIN and beneficiary records from Co-WIN can be accessed through U-WIN using the registered mobile-phone number for facilitation of registration of children.

The National Medical Commission is in the process of creating the National Medical Register, a centralised repository of doctors practising in India as a part of which all doctors in the country will have a unique identification number by the 2024-end. A pilot project of the register is also underway.

The BJP with 240 seats fell short of a majority but the NDA secured the mandate with 293 seats in the Lok Sabha polls. The Congress bagged 99 seats while the I.N.D.I.A. bloc got 234 seats. Following the polls, two Independents who won have also pledged support to the Congress, taking the INDIA bloc tally to 236.