Nirmala Sitharaman Extends Ayushman Bharat Health Cover To All ASHA, Anganwadi Workers

Finance Minister Nirmala Sithraman on Thursday, during the union budget 2024 speech, announced to extend benefits of the Ayushman Bharat scheme to all ASHA and Anganwadi Workers. Ayushman Bharat is a health scheme that provides medical cover up to Rs 5 lakhs for free. Asha and Anganwadi workers work in the front like to facilitate enabling access to health and nutrition-related services to the community.

The interim budget was expected to be women-centric and with the move to extend benefits of the Ayushman Bharat Health scheme to all ASHA and Anganwadi workers, the Narendra Modi government has targeted a big group that might help the saffron front in the upcoming elections.

Earlier, the Finance Minister had also announced that ASHA workers will be eligible for Team-Based Incentives (TBIs) on monitored performance indicators (up to Rs.1000 per month).

However, this time there was no change in the tax slab.

The Finance Minister described FDI as 'First Develop India.' "The FDI inflow during 2014 to 2023 was Rs 596 billion US dollars, marking a golden era. This was twice the FDI inflow between 2005 to 2014. For sustained FDI, we are negotiating bilateral investment treaties with foreign partners," said Sitharaman.

"Many growth and development-enabling reforms are needed in the state to realize the vision of Viksit Bharat. A provision of Rs 75,000 Crores as a 50-year interest-free loan is proposed this year to support those milestone-linked reforms by the state governments," she added.