The Odisha government on June 14 said it will not implement the Ayushman Bharat, the Central government's ambitious health insurance scheme but the 'Biju Swasthya Kalyan Yojana' which was announced two days ago.

"There is no need to implement the Ayushman Bharat scheme since we have decided to implement our own scheme which will benefit more people," Health Minister Pratap Jena said. The Ayushman Bharat programme was meant for 61 lakh families of Odisha while the Biju Swasthya Kalyan Yojana covers 70 lakh families, the minister said.

"We are going to implement the Biju Swasthya Kalyan Yojana for the interest of the people in the state. The healthcare scheme of the state government is better than that of the Centre," said Jena. Notably, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on June 13 announced the health assurance scheme that will benefit around 3.5 crore people from over 70 lakh families in the state. Under this programme, a family would get up to Rs 5 lakh per annum to meet healthcare expenditure in all government-run hospitals. The scheme will come into effect from August 15 this year.