The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance completes eight years in power on May 26, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying the tenure has been dedicated to the country’s balanced development, social justice and social security.
Addressing BJP’s national office bearers last week, Modi said: “This month, the NDA government will complete eight years. These eight years have been of resolutions and accomplishments. These eight years have been committed to service, good governance and welfare of the poor.”
In the last eight years, the Narendra Modi government has successfully delivered several schemes to directly benefit cross-sections of the society in terms of financial, healthcare and social security.
News18.com takes a look at eight such flagship schemes launched by the Narendra Modi government since 2014.
Ayushman Bharat
The Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY) Ayushman Bharat scheme was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in September 2018 and has been billed as the biggest government-sponsored healthcare scheme in the world. The scheme intends to provide health cover of Rs 5 lakh per family every year to more than 10.74 crore poor and vulnerable families. The beneficiaries of PM-JAY belong to the most deprived 40% of the Indian population.
While the central government fully funds the scheme, implementation costs are shared between the central and state governments. Apart from cashless hospitalisation, the sceheme also covers three-day expenses pre-hospitalisation and 15 days post-hospitalisation, including the costs of tests and medicines. PM-JAY services include around 1,393 procedures and all the pre-existing conditions are covered from the very first day.
On the third anniversary of the Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana rollout last year, PM Modi had also launched the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission, under which a digital health ID will be provided to people that will contain their health records.
In March this year, the government told Parliament that no beneficiary of the scheme has been denied treatment due to lack of funds and that the scheme’s revised budget was slashed due to lower requirement from states. The budget estimates for the scheme for 2019-20, 2020-21 and 2021-22 wad Rs 6,400 crore each year against which the revised estimate was Rs 3,200 crore, Rs 3,100 crore and Rs 3,199 crore, respectively.
Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Bharati Pravin Pawar on April 7, 2022 once again urged the governments of Delhi, West Bengal and Odisha to join the Ayushman Bharat scheme.
Ujjwala Yojana
Launched in 2016, the free LPG connection scheme named Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana has provided millions of households access to cooking gas cylinders without consumers having to pay a deposit to fuel retailers. A hugely successful initiative, it has allowed 80 million Indian women to lead healthy lives because they no longer have to use smoky stoves.
During the launch of the scheme in 2016, the government had set a target of providing LPG connections to 5 crore women from below poverty line households. The scheme was expanded in April 2018 to include women beneficiaries from seven more categories such as SC and ST communities and forest-dwellers.
The target was also revised to eight crore LPG connections, achieved seven months ahead of schedule in August 2019. The BJP’s second consecutive win in 2019 Lok Sabha elections was largely attributed to the Ujjwala scheme as was its historic return to power in Uttar Pradesh this year.
In August last year, the PM had launched the Ujjwala 2.0 in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh, distributing free gas connections to 10 women virtually to mark the second phase of the scheme. The 2.0 version assures 1 crore additional connections to low-income families who could not be covered under the earlier phase of PMUY.
Along with a deposit-free LPG connection, Ujjwala 2.0 will provide first refill and hotplate free of cost to the beneficiaries. The enrolment procedure will require minimum paperwork and in Ujjwala 2.0, migrants will not be required to submit ration cards or address proof.
Jan Dhan Yojana
The Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY), a national mission for financial inclusion, was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his Independence Day address from the Red Fort on August 15, 2014. The primary objective of the government’s flagship scheme has been to ensure access to financial products and services at an affordable cost.
Benefits like scholarships, subsidies, pensions, and COVID relief funds are credited to the bank accounts, including Jan Dhan Accounts, through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT).
As on January 9 this year, deposits in bank accounts opened under the Jan Dhan scheme crossed the Rs 1.5 lakh crore mark. As per the Finance Ministry data, the total balance in over 44.23 crore PMJDY accounts stood at Rs 1,50,939.36 crore at December end, 2021.
As per the data, of the total 44.23 crore accounts, 34.9 crore were with the public sector banks, 8.05 crore with regional rural banks, and the rest 1.28 crore with private sector banks. As per the data, 29.54 crore Jan Dhan accounts were held in rural and semi-urban bank branches. Nearly 24.61 crore account holders were women as of December 29, 2021. During the first year of the scheme 17.90 crore PMJDY accounts were opened.
As per the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) guideline, there is no requirement of maintaining minimum balance in Basic Savings Bank Deposit (BSBD) accounts, including Jan Dhan accounts. Depending upon transactions carried out by a Jan Dhan account holder, the balance in any Jan Dhan accounts can vary on a day-to-day basis, and may even become zero on a particular day.
As of December 8, 2021, the total number of zero balance accounts was 3.65 crore, which constituted about 8.3% of the total Jan Dhan accounts, the government had informed Parliament in December, 2021.
Kisan Samman Nidhi
Under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) scheme, a financial benefit of Rs 6,000 per year is provided to the eligible farmer families, payable in three equal installments of Rs 2,000. The money is transferred directly to the bank account of the beneficiaries.
On January 1 this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi released over Rs 20,900 crore to more than 10.09 crore farmers across India as the 10th installment of the financial aid under the scheme.
With the released latest tranche, the total amount provided under the scheme has touched about Rs 1.8 lakh crore. PM-KISAN scheme was announced in February 2019 Budget. The first instalment was for the period December 2018 to March 2019.
Bima and Pension Push
The Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana (PMJJBY) and Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana (PMSBY) were launched in 2015 with a view to enhancing the level of insurance penetration in the country and to provide insurance cover to common people, especially poor and the under-privileged sections of the society.
PMJJBY offers life insurance cover of Rs 2 lakh, while PMSBY offers accidental death or total permanent disability cover of Rs 2 lakh and permanent partial disability cover of Rs 1 lakh.
Citing data provided by insurance companies, the government told Parliament in December 2021 that 5,12,915 claims amounting to Rs 10,258 crore and 92,266 claims amounting to Rs 1,797 crore were disbursed under PMJJBY and PMSBY, respectively as of October 27, 2021.
The Atal Pension Yojana (APY), meanwhile, is based on defined benefit for providing a guaranteed minimum monthly pension of Rs 1,000/ Rs 2,000/ Rs 3,000/ Rs 4,000/ Rs 5,000 at the age of 60 years based on the pension amount chosen.
The scheme is available to account-holders between the age of 18 to 40 and offers a minimum guaranteed monthly pension of between Rs 1,000 and Rs 5,000, depending on the customer’s contribution which starts at as low as Rs 42 per month.
In addition, the spouse gets a monthly pension after the death of the subscriber and the nominee gets the corpus amount of up to Rs 8.5 lakh in the event of the death of the subscriber and the spouse.
As per the APY rules, from the age of 60 years, a subscriber would receive a minimum guaranteed pension of Rs 1,000- Rs 5,000 per month, depending upon his contribution. The same pension would be paid to the spouse of the subscriber and on the demise of both the subscriber and spouse, the accumulated pension wealth is returned to the nominee.
Housing for All
The Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in June 2015, aims to ensure “housing for all by 2022”. In her Budget 2022 speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced allocation of whopping Rs 48,000 crore for completion of 80 lakh houses under the PMAY, both rural and urban, during the next fiscal year.
“In 2022-23, 80 lakh houses will be completed for the identified eligible beneficiaries of PM Awas Yojana, both rural and urban. Rs 48,000 crore is allocated for this purpose,” she said. The Economy Survey 2022 highlighted that 33.99 lakh houses were completed in 2020-21 and 26.20 lakh units as on November 25, 2021 under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana – Gramin (PMAY-G) programme.
For the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana – Urban (PMAY-U), the survey noted that 14.56 lakh houses were completed in FY21. In 2021-22, 4.49 lakh houses were completed till December 2021.
Swachh Bharat
Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan in 2014, vowing to eliminate open defecation nationwide. Under the mission, the government has built toilets in over 11.5 crore households. Rs 7,192 crore has been allocated in the 2022-23 budget for the Swachh Bharat Mission (Rural) while Rs 1,41,678 crore will be spent during 2021-2026 for the Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban).
The PM had launched the second phase of the Swachh Bharat mission in October last year, which envisions to make all cities ‘garbage free’, make all urban local bodies open defecation free and those with a population of less than 1 lakh as open defecation free, thereby achieving the vision of safe sanitation in urban areas.
The mission will focus on source segregation of solid waste, utilising the principles of 3Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle), scientific processing of all types of municipal solid waste and remediation of legacy dumpsites for effective solid waste management.
Mudra Yojana
The Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana (PMMY) is a flagship scheme of the government to provide loans of up to Rs 10 lakh to small entrepreneurs. The loans are being given by banks, small finance banks, non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) and microfinance institutions. The scheme aims to strengthen forward and backward linkages for robust value chains anchored by industries, aggregators, franchisors and associations.
On April 8 this year, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said more than 34.42 crore beneficiaries have received Rs 18.60 lakh crore loan under the scheme. More than 68 per cent of the loan accounts have been sanctioned to women and 22 per cent of the loans have been given to new entrepreneurs who had not availed any loan since the inception of the scheme, she added.
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