Mukhyamantri Abua Swasthya Suraksha Yojana

What is Mukhyamantri Abua Swasthya Suraksha Yojana?

Mukhyamantri Abua Swasthya Suraksha Yojana is Jharkhand's own health assurance scheme, run by the Health, Medical Education and Family Welfare Department through the Jharkhand State Arogya Society. The scheme gives an eligible family cashless hospital treatment worth up to Rs 15 lakh in a year, which is three times the Rs 5 lakh limit available under the central Ayushman Bharat PM-JAY scheme.

The word Abua means "ours" in Santhali and Mundari, and the scheme is often written as Abua Swasthya Bima Yojana or simply the Abua Swasthya card in local usage. All three names refer to the same state cover.

Two things separate this scheme from PM-JAY. First, the amount: PM-JAY stops at Rs 5 lakh a year, and Abua Swasthya Suraksha Yojana carries the same family up to Rs 15 lakh. Second, the coverage of families: PM-JAY works off the central SECC-based list, which leaves out a large number of Jharkhand households that hold a state ration card. Mukhyamantri Abua Swasthya Suraksha Yojana pulls those families in using the ration card database maintained by the Food, Public Distribution and Consumer Affairs Department at aahar.jharkhand.gov.in.

The cover is a family floater. That means the Rs 15 lakh belongs to the household, not to one person. A single major surgery can consume the whole amount, or four members can each use part of it in the same financial year. There is no upper limit on the number of members in a family, and no age bar.

Who is eligible for Mukhyamantri Abua Swasthya Suraksha Yojana?

You can get the cover if:

• Your family is resident in Jharkhand and holds a red, pink, yellow or green ration card issued by the state Food Department.
• Your household already appears on the Ayushman Bharat PM-JAY list, in that case the state scheme tops up your existing Rs 5 lakh entitlement to Rs 15 lakh.
• Every member you want covered has an Aadhaar number that can be authenticated at the kiosk.

You are not eligible if:

• Your family holds no Jharkhand ration card and does not otherwise appear in the state or central beneficiary database. Card generation is driven by that database, so a family absent from it cannot be enrolled at the kiosk.
• You are a resident of another state. Entitlement follows the Jharkhand ration card, not a temporary address in the state.
• The treatment you need is already fully funded by a government service medical scheme such as CGHS, ESIC or a railway or defence medical scheme for the same episode of care. Double claiming for the same admission is not allowed.
• You are seeking treatment at a hospital that is not empanelled under the scheme. Bills from non-empanelled hospitals are not paid, however genuine the illness.

Age, gender and occupation place no bar at all. Newborns of a covered mother are treated as covered from birth, and elderly members are covered on the same floater.

What treatment does the Rs 15 lakh cover?

Mukhyamantri Abua Swasthya Suraksha Yojana covers secondary and tertiary inpatient care at empanelled hospitals, on the same package-rate model that PM-JAY uses. In practice that means admissions for surgery, cardiology, oncology, nephrology and dialysis, orthopaedics, neurology, paediatric care, burns and trauma, obstetric complications, and the diagnostics, medicines, implants, ICU stay, food and follow-up that fall inside the approved package.

Payment is layered. Claims of up to Rs 1 lakh per family per year are met through an insurance arrangement, while the portion above Rs 1 lakh and up to Rs 15 lakh is paid in trust mode directly by the Jharkhand State Arogya Society. A patient never sees this split. It matters only to the hospital raising the claim — but it explains why the state and an insurer both appear on scheme documents.

The scheme does not pay for outpatient consultations that do not lead to admission, for cosmetic procedures, or for treatment taken abroad.

How to apply for the Abua Swasthya card

There is no application form to fill and no fee to pay. Card generation is a verification step, not an application in the usual sense.

1. Carry your ration card and the Aadhaar card of every member you want on the card to the nearest enrolment point. That can be the Ayushman or Abua Swasthya kiosk inside an empanelled government or private hospital, an Ayushman kendra, or a Pragya Kendra (Common Service Centre).
2. Ask the operator to search your family using the ration card number or the Aadhaar number of any member. The operator queries the state beneficiary database, which is built from ration card and SECC data.
3. Complete Aadhaar authentication for each member. A fingerprint scan, an iris scan, or an OTP to the mobile number linked to Aadhaar. Face authentication is available at some kiosks for members whose fingerprints do not read.
4. Check the spelling of names, the date of birth and the relationship shown on screen before the operator saves the record. Mistakes here are the single biggest cause of trouble at admission time.
5. Collect the printed card, or download the e-card later. Keep the family ID number safe; it is what a hospital needs at admission.

If a family member is missing from the record, the operator can raise an addition request against the same family folder. Additions still have to clear verification against the ration card database, so it is worth getting the member added to the ration card first.

How to use the card at a hospital

1. Go to the Arogya Mitra desk at the empanelled hospital, not directly to the billing counter, and show the Abua Swasthya or Ayushman card.
2. The Arogya Mitra verifies identity by Aadhaar authentication and raises a pre-authorisation request for the treatment package.
3. Once pre-authorisation is approved, treatment proceeds cashless. The hospital cannot ask for a deposit for a covered package.
4. At discharge, sign the claim documents and keep the discharge summary. It is the record you need if a dispute arises later.

Why claims and cards get rejected, and what to do

• Family not found in the database. The ration card number is wrong, or the family is genuinely not listed. Fix the ration card record on aahar.jharkhand.gov.in first, then return to the kiosk.
• Aadhaar authentication failure. Fingerprints do not read for many manual workers and elderly people. Ask for iris or OTP-based authentication instead of repeating the fingerprint scan.
• Name or date-of-birth mismatch between Aadhaar and the ration card. Get the two documents aligned; the hospital cannot override a mismatch.
• e-KYC pending on the ration card. The Food Department requires cardholders to complete e-KYC at the dealer's e-POS machine, and a pending e-KYC can leave a member invisible to the kiosk search.
• Treatment at a non-empanelled hospital. Nothing can be done after the fact. Check the empanelled hospital list on bis.jharkhand.gov.in before a planned admission.
• Package not covered or limit exhausted. The Rs 15 lakh is annual and resets each policy year.

Key numbers and dates

• Cover: Rs 15 lakh per family per year, family floater, no cap on family size.
• Insurance layer: up to Rs 1 lakh per family per year; the balance up to Rs 15 lakh is paid in trust mode by the Jharkhand State Arogya Society.
• Comparison: Ayushman Bharat PM-JAY covers Rs 5 lakh a year; this scheme adds Rs 10 lakh on top for the same family.
• Card generation: open all year, free, no last date announced.

Where to complain

• State health helpline: 104, for hospital refusal, demands for cash at an empanelled hospital, or card problems.
• Arogya Mitra desk at the hospital, for admission-stage disputes.
• Jharkhand State Arogya Society, through the grievance link on bis.jharkhand.gov.in, for written complaints and claim disputes.
• Ration card corrections, which are the root of most enrolment failures, go to the block supply office or the Aahar helpline 1800-345-6598.

No agent can charge a fee for making the Abua Swasthya card, and no government officer will ask for your Aadhaar OTP over the phone.

How to check your application status

Because card generation happens on the spot at the kiosk rather than through a form that goes into a queue, there is no separate "application" that sits pending for days in the usual sense. Even so, three situations come up often enough that it helps to know exactly where to look.

• Card was generated but you want to confirm it is active. Ask the Arogya Mitra or kiosk operator at any empanelled hospital, Ayushman kendra or Pragya Kendra to pull up your family record using the ration card number or any member's Aadhaar number. Since the same beneficiary database that issued the card also verifies it at admission time, a successful lookup there is the actual proof of an active card, not just the printed slip you were handed.
• A member-addition request is pending. If a family member was missed at first enrolment and the operator raised an addition request against your family folder, that request has to clear verification against the ration card database before the new member shows up on the card. Go back to the same kiosk after a few days and ask the operator to re-check the family folder; if it is still not reflecting, the hold is almost always an unresolved mismatch on the ration card side, not something the kiosk can push through faster.
• Your name is missing from the beneficiary database itself. This is not a card status question at all, it is a ration card record question. Check your ration card and e-KYC status on aahar.jharkhand.gov.in first, since the Abua Swasthya kiosk search only ever returns what that database already holds. A family that is not resolved there will keep failing the kiosk search no matter how many times you retry.
• A hospital claim is in process during an admission. Once the Arogya Mitra has raised the pre-authorisation for your treatment package, the claim's progress is tracked by the hospital and the Jharkhand State Arogya Society between themselves; as a patient your visible checkpoint is simply whether the Arogya Mitra confirms pre-authorisation has come through before treatment starts. If it is taking unusually long, ask the Arogya Mitra desk directly rather than waiting it out, since they are the ones with claim-portal access.
• When none of the above resolves it, call the state health helpline 104 and describe whether the issue is enrolment, an addition request or an admission-stage claim, since each is handled by a different desk within the Jharkhand State Arogya Society. Keep your ration card number and, if applicable, the family ID number from the printed card ready before you call, as both offices above will ask for one of these first.