Bill Gates congratulates government on Ayushman Bharat; PM thanks him

Microsoft Co-Founder Bill Gates congratulates government; Narendra Modi says Ayushman Bharat 'stems out of our commitment to provide top quality and affordable healthcare to the poor'.

Microsoft Co-founder Bill Gates on Thursday congratulated the Indian government for the achievements made by the Ayushman Bharat healthcare scheme in its first 100 days.  “Congratulations to the Indian government on the first 100 days of @AyushmanNHA. It's great to see how many people have been reached by the program so far,” Gates tweeted, tagging the Prime Minister's Office.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi thanked Gates, saying the scheme “stems out of our commitment to provide top quality and affordable healthcare to the poor”.

The government had recently said that 685,000 beneficiaries had availed free healthcare in the first 100 days of the scheme. The prime minister said the first 100 days had been remarkable. “A large number of people benefited and lot more will in the coming days,” he said.

The prime minister rolled out the scheme in September last year. The insurance scheme aims to provide an annual health cover of Rs 5 lakh per family for secondary and tertiary care hospitalisation.

The programme will benefit about 100 million poor households and has been described by the government as the world's largest healthcare scheme.