Already dubbed as Modicare, the National Health Protection Scheme announced by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley during his Union Budget 2018 speech has only one new factor – monetary increase from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 5 lakh per family. Jaitley had first announced this scheme in his 2016-17 Union Budget speech.

"The Government will launch a new health protection scheme which will provide health cover up-to rupees one lakh per family. For Senior citizens of the age 60 years and above belonging to this category, an additional top-up package up to Rs 30, 000 will be provided," read a statement from the centre from 2016.

This scheme, so far, went without an approval from the Union Cabinet. In its new avatar as "one of the largest healthcare programmes in the world" per Jaitley, the scheme will now provide Rs 5 lakh per family and aims to cover around 10 crore families or 50 crore people.

The health budget. (Image courtesy: News18 Creative)

The scheme is part of Ayushman Bharat Programme, a move towards universal health care. How the scheme has evolved over the years:

An analysis by the Centre For Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA) traces how the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) was split, in 2015-16, into two components of health and social security, renamed the Rashtriya Swasthya Suraksha Yojana (RSSY) in 2016 and the NHPS in 2017.

The CBGA analysis of the scheme, in one form or the other, from 2012 onwards shows that its allocation peaked in the 2016-17 budget estimate (BE)-- Rs 1500 crore. The revised estimate (RE) for the year was Rs 724 crore. The BE for 2017-18 was Rs 1000 crore. However, the actual expenditure was less than half this allocated amount, a paltry Rs 471 crore.

Despite this, the new allocation for the RSBY is Rs 2000 crore.

Though Jaitley's speech did not announce the 2018-19 allocation for this particular scheme, budget documents show that the BE for RSBY is now Rs 2000 crore. "It is not clear whether the erstwhile RSSY (RSBY) has merely been renamed as NHPS, without any change in the entitlement under the scheme. The 2017-18 budget does not give any evidence of this increase," said the CBGA.