Ayushman Vay Vandana Completes Two Years of Elderly Care

The Union Health Ministry's hospital cover for the elderly, Ayushman Vay Vandana, finished two years on 29 October 2026. The Prime Minister had launched it on 29 October 2024 to stretch the benefits of Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana to every Indian who has turned 70, whatever the household's income or social standing.

Who the cover reaches

The National Health Authority runs the initiative for the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. About 6 crore older citizens, drawn from roughly 4.5 crore households, come within its reach. Each such family may draw up to Rs 5 lakh a year for secondary and tertiary hospital treatment. Where a family is already enrolled under AB PM-JAY, its members aged 70 and over get a separate top-up of up to Rs 5 lakh a year meant for them alone, so the entitlement of younger members in the same house is left untouched.

Two years of hospital use

Counting up to 20 October 2026, the scheme had authorised 23.46 lakh hospital admissions. The treatment sanctioned in them is valued at Rs 5,668.80 crore. Cataract operations lead by volume with 4.71 lakh procedures, close to 20.1 per cent of everything cleared, a sign of how much untreated eye trouble older people had been carrying. Long-term dialysis for kidney disease follows at about 2.90 lakh treatments, keeping alive patients who need the hospital again and again.

Where the money went

By rupee value the heaviest head is Percutaneous Transluminal Coronary Angioplasty, the procedure that opens blocked heart arteries, at roughly Rs 649 crore. Knee replacement, flare-ups of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, acute febrile illness and sudden kidney failure make up the other large groups, so the spending runs from routine surgery all the way to critical care.

Dr. Sunil Kumar Barnwal, who heads the National Health Authority, said on the anniversary that the scheme lets older people seek treatment with dignity and keeps money worries from standing between them and a hospital bed. The programme now enters its third year.