Use of Aadhaar in Ayushman Bharat desirable but not must, clarifies health ministry

New Delhi: The health ministry has termed the reports in a section of media about the use of Aadhaar Card as a “must” to avail benefits under the Ayushman Bharat – National Health Protection Mission as factually incorrect.

“Notification of the Ayushman Bharat – National Health Protection Mission being issued by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare under Section 7 of the Aadhaar Act, merely enables the implementation agencies to ask for the beneficiary Aadhaar Card to authenticate their identity. In order to authenticate the identity of beneficiaries accurately, the use of Aadhaar card is preferable, but it is not a “must”. There shall be no denial of benefit for want of Aadhaar number,” the health ministry has clarified.

The union health minister, Mr J P Nadda confirmed that “we will provide services to all eligible beneficiaries with or without Aadhaar cards.”

The draft notification also provides for exception handling mechanism, viz production of alternate identification mechanisms such as Ration Card, Voter ID Card, MGNREGA Card etc. (as mentioned in the notification) in case the beneficiary does not have an Aadhaar number. Furthermore, it also makes the implementation agencies accountable for setting up of Aadhaar enrollment centers for the beneficiaries who are not yet enrolled for Aadhaar, at convenient locations.

The ‘Ayushman Bharat National Health Protection Mission’ guidelines on beneficiary identification very clearly state that beneficiaries can bring Aadhar or any other valid government id(s) decided by the State if they do not have an Aadhaar. The guidelines can be found here.