Health & Sanitation Schemes

Why This Chapter Matters

Health schemes hand out some of the easiest marks in the entire General Awareness section, and SSC, RRB and banking papers know it. Expect at least one direct question from this chapter in nearly every SSC CGL, CHSL, MTS and RRB NTPC paper, usually testing the launch year of Ayushman Bharat, the coverage amount under PM-JAY, or the goal of Swachh Bharat Mission. These six schemes between them touch almost every household in the country, from the pregnant woman getting cash for a hospital delivery to the toilet built under a village sanitation drive, so examiners treat them as "everyone should know this" general knowledge, not niche trivia.

Here is the coming shape of the chapter: two flagship umbrella missions (Ayushman Bharat, Swachh Bharat), then four targeted schemes each fixing one specific health gap — immunisation, maternal care, child nutrition, and cheap medicine. The single biggest mistake aspirants make with this topic is mixing up Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY), the insurance scheme, with Pradhan Mantri Jan Aushadhi Yojana (PMBJP), the cheap-medicine-shop scheme. The names sound almost identical in Hindi and English both, and paper setters exploit that on purpose. Read this chapter once with that distinction in mind and you will never fall for it again.

Notice a pattern across every scheme in this chapter: each one attacks a different link in the same chain of ill health. A poor family without insurance skips treatment until disease becomes an emergency, that is what PM-JAY fixes. Contaminated surroundings spread infection before treatment is even needed, that is what Swachh Bharat fixes. A child who misses vaccination carries lifelong risk from diseases that were entirely preventable, that is what Mission Indradhanush fixes. A mother who delivers at home without skilled help risks her life and her baby's, that is what Janani Suraksha Yojana fixes. A child who is fed but undernourished still falls behind physically and mentally, that is what POSHAN Abhiyaan fixes. And a family that reaches a doctor but cannot afford the prescribed medicine still goes without treatment, that is what Jan Aushadhi fixes. Read the chapter this way, as six links in one chain, and the schemes stop being six things to cram and start being one story with six chapters of its own.

1. Ayushman Bharat and PM-JAY

Ayushman Bharat, launched in 2018 by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, is not one scheme. It is an umbrella mission built on two pillars, and this is exactly where SSC loves to test you.

Pillar 1 is Health and Wellness Centres (HWCs), launched earlier in February 2018. These upgrade existing sub-centres and primary health centres into places offering comprehensive primary care, not just maternal and child health services. In 2022 the government began rebranding these HWCs as Ayushman Arogya Mandirs, so if a question mentions that name, know it refers to the same HWC network under a new signboard.

Pillar 2 is the one everyone remembers: Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY), launched on 23 September 2018. This is the world's largest government-funded health assurance scheme by number of families covered. It gives eligible families a health cover of ₹5 lakh per family per year for secondary and tertiary hospitalisation, and the treatment is cashless and paperless at the point of care. Eligibility is based on deprivation and occupational criteria from the SECC 2011 database, covering roughly 10.74 crore poor and vulnerable families, later expanded further. In 2024 the scheme was extended to cover all senior citizens aged 70 and above regardless of income, through the Ayushman Vay Vandana Card, on top of their existing family cover.

Analogy: think of Ayushman Bharat as a hospital building with two different departments. HWCs are the outpatient department on the ground floor, handling everyday checkups and prevention close to home. PM-JAY is the insurance counter that pays the bill when someone needs to be admitted for something serious. One prevents, one protects your wallet.

PM-JAY works on an entitlement basis, not a premium-based insurance model. A family does not pay to enrol and does not pay a premium to stay covered. If a family qualifies under the SECC 2011 deprivation categories, the cover is theirs automatically, and treatment at any empanelled hospital, government or private, is settled directly between the hospital and the insurer without the patient handling cash. This is the detail that makes the scheme genuinely useful to a daily-wage family that could never have afforded a private health insurance premium in the first place, and it is also why the scheme is described in exam material as "assurance" rather than plain "insurance."

Exam trap: PM-JAY covers hospitalisation costs through insurance. It does not run the medicine shops that sell cheap generic drugs. That is a completely different scheme you will meet later in this chapter. Do not let the similar full names fool you on exam day.

2. Swachh Bharat Mission

Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) launched on 2 October 2014, deliberately chosen as Mahatma Gandhi's birth anniversary, because Gandhi himself linked cleanliness to dignity and swaraj. It runs as two separate sub-missions under two different ministries, and that split is a favourite SSC question.

SBM-Gramin (rural) falls under the Ministry of Jal Shakti, specifically its Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation. Its core objective was to make rural India open-defecation free (ODF) by building household and community toilets and changing sanitation behaviour, a target India declared achieved on 2 October 2019, Gandhi's 150th birth anniversary.

SBM-Urban falls under the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs. Alongside ending open defecation in towns and cities, it focuses heavily on solid waste management, from door-to-door garbage collection to scientific processing, and on ending manual scavenging.

Since achieving basic ODF status, the mission has moved into a second phase. SBM 2.0, launched in 2021, targets ODF Plus status, meaning sustained cleanliness through solid and liquid waste management, not just the presence of a toilet.

Memory hook: "G comes before U, and Jal comes before Housing." Gramin is handled by the Jal Shakti ministry, Urban by the Housing and Urban Affairs ministry. Say it in that order and the pairing sticks.

You have almost certainly seen an SBM poster or a Swachhata hi Sewa campaign banner near a railway station or government office. That is not incidental branding, it is the mission trying to make cleanliness a habit through constant visible reminders, exactly the behaviour-change strategy the scheme was designed around.

Two figures are worth holding on to for exam purposes. Over 10 crore individual household toilets were reported built under SBM-Gramin between 2014 and the 2019 ODF declaration, and the mission is widely credited by public health researchers with contributing to a measurable fall in diarrhoeal disease and child mortality linked to open defecation, because contaminated water and soil are a direct transmission route for many gut infections. This is the real-world payoff behind a scheme that can otherwise sound like a simple infrastructure drive: fewer toilets meant more open defecation, which meant more contaminated groundwater, which meant more sick children. Building a toilet was never just about dignity, though that mattered too, it was public health engineering at village scale.

3. Mission Indradhanush

Launched in December 2014 by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Mission Indradhanush aims to rapidly increase full immunisation coverage among children under two years of age and pregnant women, protecting them against vaccine-preventable diseases such as diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, polio, tuberculosis, measles and hepatitis B.

The name itself is the memory hook: Indradhanush means rainbow, and a rainbow has seven colours, matching the original seven diseases the mission targeted before more vaccines were added later. Picture a child's vaccination card as a small rainbow of coloured stripes, one per disease covered, and you will not forget what the scheme protects against.

Coverage moved too slowly under the base scheme, so the government launched Intensified Mission Indradhanush (IMI) in 2017 to push harder in low-coverage districts. This was followed by IMI 2.0 in 2019 and further phases since, each round tightening the focus on districts and urban pockets where children were still being missed. If you see "IMI" in a question, it refers to this intensified, faster-paced version layered on top of the original mission, not a separate scheme.

Exam trap: do not confuse Mission Indradhanush, which is about routine childhood immunisation, with the Universal Immunisation Programme (UIP), the older ongoing government immunisation framework that Indradhanush was designed to accelerate. Indradhanush is the booster drive, UIP is the baseline system it runs on top of.

Why was an intensified version even needed? Routine immunisation under UIP had stalled for years around 60-65% full coverage nationally, leaving lakhs of children partially or completely unvaccinated every year, often in the same hard-to-reach or migratory pockets, urban slums, remote hill districts, riverine and tribal areas. Mission Indradhanush and its intensified follow-up rounds specifically targeted these left-behind pockets district by district, using local health workers to trace every unvaccinated child by name rather than waiting for families to come to a clinic. That door-to-door tracing approach is what pushed full immunisation coverage meaningfully higher within a few years, and it is the kind of operational detail that separates a scheme's stated goal from how it was actually achieved on the ground.

4. Janani Suraksha Yojana

Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY) launched in 2005 under the National Rural Health Mission, run by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Its objective is direct and life-saving: reduce maternal and neonatal mortality by encouraging poor pregnant women to deliver in a hospital or health facility instead of at home, where skilled help is not available if something goes wrong.

The scheme works through cash assistance paid to the mother for choosing institutional delivery, with the amount varying by whether she lives in a rural or urban area and by which state she is in, since low-performing states received higher support to close the gap faster. It also links each beneficiary with an ASHA worker (Accredited Social Health Activist), the village-level link who counsels the woman during pregnancy and accompanies her to the health facility for delivery.

Analogy: think of JSY as a taxi fare and incentive rolled into one, paid specifically to get a mother from her home to a safe delivery room instead of trusting a home birth to chance. It does not pay for the delivery itself so much as it removes the excuse not to go.

Maternal mortality in India has fallen sharply since the 2000s, and JSY is one of the schemes credited with that shift, because institutional delivery rates rose fastest in exactly the states where JSY cash incentives were highest.

Exam trap: JSY is often confused with Janani Shishu Suraksha Karyakram (JSSK), a related but distinct scheme launched later, in 2011, which guarantees completely free delivery, including free caesarean sections, free drugs, free diagnostics and free transport for both mother and sick newborn, with no out-of-pocket expense at all. JSY pays a cash incentive for choosing institutional delivery. JSSK removes the cost of that delivery entirely once she is at the facility. Think of JSY as the reason to go, and JSSK as what waits for her once she arrives.

5. POSHAN Abhiyaan

POSHAN Abhiyaan (National Nutrition Mission) launched in March 2018 under the Ministry of Women and Child Development. Its objective is to cut malnutrition among children, adolescent girls, and pregnant and lactating women, focusing on four measurable targets: reducing stunting, undernutrition, anaemia, and low birth weight.

POSHAN is a genuine acronym worth remembering: Prime Minister's Overarching Scheme for Holistic Nourishment. Notice it targets nourishment across a person's earliest life stages, from the womb through early childhood, because nutrition gaps in the first thousand days of life cause damage that later feeding cannot fully reverse.

In 2021-22 the government restructured this space, merging POSHAN Abhiyaan with the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) scheme and the Scheme for Adolescent Girls into a combined umbrella called Saksham Anganwadi and POSHAN 2.0. If a question refers to POSHAN 2.0, it is asking about this merged, expanded version, not a brand-new separate scheme. This is exactly the kind of rename-and-merge trap the book's introduction warned you about, and a stale free PDF is unlikely to mention it.

Memory hook: "SUAL" — Stunting, Undernutrition, Anaemia, Low birth weight are the four targets POSHAN Abhiyaan tracks. Say "SUAL" once and you have the whole list.

The delivery point for most of this work is the neighbourhood Anganwadi centre, the same small building where children get weighed, pregnant women get checked, and hot midday meals get served. If you grew up in a small town or village, you have likely walked past one without realising it sits at the centre of this entire nutrition mission.

Stunting and wasting are two terms exam papers like to swap in and out, and students routinely lose marks confusing them. Stunting means a child is too short for their age, the result of chronic, long-term undernutrition building up over months or years. Wasting means a child is too thin for their height, the result of sudden, recent food shortage or illness. A stunted child has been underfed for a long time. A wasted child is underfed right now. POSHAN Abhiyaan's headline target is reducing stunting, since it reflects the deeper, harder-to-reverse damage.

6. Pradhan Mantri Jan Aushadhi Yojana (PMBJP)

This is the scheme most often confused with PM-JAY, so slow down here. Jan Aushadhi (public medicine) began as a campaign in 2008, but it did not gain real momentum until it was relaunched and expanded in 2015 under the name Pradhan Mantri Bhartiya Janaushadhi Pariyojana (PMBJP), run by the Department of Pharmaceuticals under the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers, not the health ministry.

The objective is simple: sell quality generic medicines at prices 60% to 90% cheaper than branded equivalents, through dedicated retail outlets called Jan Aushadhi Kendras. Generic medicines contain the same active ingredients as branded drugs and work identically, they just skip the marketing and brand premium that inflates the price of the branded version.

Exam trap, repeated because it is worth repeating: PM-JAY (Jan Arogya, health insurance, Ministry of Health, launched 2018) and PMBJP (Jan Aushadhi, cheap medicine shops, Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers, relaunched 2015) are two entirely different schemes under two different ministries. SSC has tested this exact confusion before. If a question mentions "cashless hospitalisation," it means PM-JAY. If it mentions "generic medicine at low cost" or "Kendra," it means PMBJP.

Analogy: think of a neighbourhood medical store versus an insurance office standing on opposite sides of the same street. Jan Aushadhi Kendra is the shop counter where you buy an affordable strip of tablets. PM-JAY's insurance desk is where a hospital bill gets settled. Same street, same "Jan" in the name, completely different jobs.

The government has steadily expanded the Jan Aushadhi Kendra network every year, and the scheme frequently updates its target figure for total outlets in press releases, so avoid memorising an exact store count, it changes too fast to be a safe exam answer. What stays stable, and what SSC actually tests, is the structure: which department runs it, what it sells, and roughly how much cheaper the medicines are compared to branded versions. If you remember that a Jan Aushadhi Kendra is a retail counter for generic drugs run under the Department of Pharmaceuticals, you can answer almost any variant of this question, regardless of how the numbers have moved since this book was written.

Quick Revision — One-Line Facts

• Ayushman Bharat launched 2018, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, umbrella mission with two pillars.
• Pillar 1 of Ayushman Bharat: Health and Wellness Centres, launched February 2018, now rebranded Ayushman Arogya Mandirs.
• Pillar 2 of Ayushman Bharat: PM-JAY, launched 23 September 2018, world's largest government-funded health assurance scheme.
• PM-JAY gives ₹5 lakh per family per year cashless cover for secondary and tertiary hospitalisation.
• PM-JAY eligibility is based on SECC 2011 deprivation criteria, covering about 10.74 crore families.
• In 2024, PM-JAY extended cover to all citizens aged 70 and above via the Ayushman Vay Vandana Card.
• Swachh Bharat Mission launched 2 October 2014, Gandhi's birth anniversary.
• SBM-Gramin runs under the Ministry of Jal Shakti.
• SBM-Urban runs under the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.
• Rural India was declared ODF (open-defecation free) on 2 October 2019.
• SBM 2.0, launched 2021, targets ODF Plus status through solid and liquid waste management.
• Mission Indradhanush launched December 2014, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
• Mission Indradhanush originally targeted seven vaccine- preventable diseases.
• Intensified Mission Indradhanush (IMI) launched 2017 to speed up low-coverage districts.
• IMI 2.0 launched 2019 as a further intensified round.
• Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY) launched 2005 under the National Rural Health Mission.
• JSY objective: promote institutional delivery through cash assistance to reduce maternal and neonatal mortality.
• JSY cash amounts vary by rural/urban location and by state performance category.
• ASHA workers counsel and escort JSY beneficiaries to health facilities.
• POSHAN Abhiyaan launched March 2018, Ministry of Women and Child Development.
• POSHAN targets four outcomes: stunting, undernutrition, anaemia, low birth weight.
• POSHAN Abhiyaan merged with ICDS and the Scheme for Adolescent Girls in 2021-22 to form Saksham Anganwadi and POSHAN 2.0.
• Anganwadi centres are the ground-level delivery point for POSHAN-related services.
• Jan Aushadhi began as a campaign in 2008.
• It was relaunched in 2015 as Pradhan Mantri Bhartiya Janaushadhi Pariyojana (PMBJP).
• PMBJP runs under the Department of Pharmaceuticals, Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers, not the health ministry.
• PMBJP sells generic medicines at outlets called Jan Aushadhi Kendras, priced 60% to 90% cheaper than branded drugs.
• PM-JAY (Jan Arogya) and PMBJP (Jan Aushadhi) are different schemes under different ministries, a common exam trap.
• Ayushman Bharat is described as the world's largest health assurance scheme by families covered.
• Swachhata hi Sewa is a public campaign under the Swachh Bharat Mission umbrella, not a separate scheme.

Memory Tables

Table 1 — Health Schemes at a Glance

Scheme	Launch Year	Ministry	One-line Objective
Ayushman Bharat / PM-JAY	2018	Health and Family Welfare	₹5 lakh cashless health cover per family per year
Swachh Bharat Mission	2014	Jal Shakti (Gramin) / Housing and Urban Affairs (Urban)	End open defecation, manage waste
Mission Indradhanush	2014	Health and Family Welfare	Full immunisation of children and pregnant women
Janani Suraksha Yojana	2005	Health and Family Welfare	Cash incentive for institutional delivery
POSHAN Abhiyaan	2018	Women and Child Development	Cut stunting, undernutrition, anaemia, low birth weight
PM Jan Aushadhi Yojana (PMBJP)	2008 (relaunched 2015)	Chemicals and Fertilizers	Affordable generic medicines via Jan Aushadhi Kendras

Table 2 — Renamed, Merged or Expanded Schemes (Exam Traps)

Old / Original Name	New / Current Name	What Changed
Health and Wellness Centres	Ayushman Arogya Mandirs	Rebranded, 2022 onward
Jan Aushadhi campaign (2008)	Pradhan Mantri Bhartiya Janaushadhi Pariyojana	Relaunched with new structure, 2015
POSHAN Abhiyaan + ICDS + Scheme for Adolescent Girls	Saksham Anganwadi and POSHAN 2.0	Merged into one umbrella, 2021-22
Mission Indradhanush	Intensified Mission Indradhanush (IMI, IMI 2.0)	Accelerated rollout phases, 2017 and 2019
PM-JAY (below-poverty-line families only)	PM-JAY + Ayushman Vay Vandana Card	Extended to all citizens aged 70+, 2024

Practice MCQs

Q1. In which year was Ayushman Bharat launched? (a) 2016 (b) 2017 (c) 2018 (d) 2019

Q2. Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY) provides a health cover of how much per family per year? (a) ₹1 lakh (b) ₹2 lakh (c) ₹5 lakh (d) ₹10 lakh

Q3. Which ministry runs Ayushman Bharat / PM-JAY? (a) Ministry of Rural Development (b) Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (c) Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers (d) Ministry of Women and Child Development

Q4. Swachh Bharat Mission was launched on which date? (a) 15 August 2014 (b) 26 January 2014 (c) 2 October 2014 (d) 2 October 2015

Q5. SBM-Urban falls under which ministry? (a) Ministry of Jal Shakti (b) Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (c) Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (d) Ministry of Rural Development

Q6. Mission Indradhanush was launched in which year? (a) 2012 (b) 2014 (c) 2016 (d) 2018

Q7. What does the name "Indradhanush" refer to, connecting it to the original number of diseases targeted? (a) A river (b) A rainbow, with seven original target diseases (c) A festival (d) A mountain range

Q8. Janani Suraksha Yojana primarily promotes which behaviour to cut maternal and neonatal deaths? (a) Institutional delivery (b) Home birth (c) Sterilisation (d) Prenatal yoga

Q9. Which health worker is the key link connecting a JSY beneficiary to the health facility? (a) Anganwadi worker (b) ASHA worker (c) District Collector (d) Panchayat Sarpanch

Q10. POSHAN Abhiyaan works under which ministry? (a) Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (b) Ministry of Women and Child Development (c) Ministry of Rural Development (d) Ministry of Panchayati Raj

Q11. Which of these is NOT one of POSHAN Abhiyaan's four core targets? (a) Stunting (b) Anaemia (c) Low birth weight (d) Infant vaccination coverage

Q12. Pradhan Mantri Bhartiya Janaushadhi Pariyojana (Jan Aushadhi) falls under which ministry? (a) Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (b) Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers (c) Ministry of Commerce and Industry (d) Ministry of Consumer Affairs

Q13. In 2021-22, POSHAN Abhiyaan was merged with ICDS and the Scheme for Adolescent Girls to form which programme? (a) Ayushman Arogya Mandir (b) Saksham Anganwadi and POSHAN 2.0 (c) Intensified Mission Indradhanush (d) National Nutrition Council

Q14. In 2024, PM-JAY was extended to cover which additional group regardless of income, through the Ayushman Vay Vandana Card? (a) All students (b) All citizens aged 70 and above (c) All farmers (d) All government employees

Q15. Which pair correctly distinguishes PM-JAY from PMBJP? (a) Both are the same scheme (b) PM-JAY provides health insurance, PMBJP sells affordable generic medicines (c) PM-JAY sells medicines, PMBJP provides insurance (d) Both are run by the same ministry

Answer Key

Q	Answer	Reason
Q1	(c) 2018	Ayushman Bharat launched in 2018, with HWCs in February and PM-JAY on 23 September of that year.
Q2	(c) ₹5 lakh	PM-JAY's headline coverage figure, per family per year, for secondary and tertiary hospitalisation.
Q3	(b) Ministry of Health and Family Welfare	Ayushman Bharat and PM-JAY both sit under this ministry, unlike Jan Aushadhi.
Q4	(c) 2 October 2014	Chosen deliberately on Gandhi's birth anniversary to invoke his cleanliness ideals.
Q5	(b) Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs	SBM-Gramin sits with Jal Shakti; SBM-Urban sits with Housing and Urban Affairs.
Q6	(b) 2014	Launched December 2014, same year as Swachh Bharat Mission but a separate scheme.
Q7	(b) A rainbow, with seven original target diseases	The name mirrors the seven colours of a rainbow and the seven original diseases covered.
Q8	(a) Institutional delivery	JSY's core mechanism is cash assistance to encourage hospital births over home births.
Q9	(b) ASHA worker	ASHA workers counsel pregnant women and accompany them to the health facility under JSY.
Q10	(b) Ministry of Women and Child Development	Unlike most other schemes in this chapter, POSHAN sits with this ministry, not Health.
Q11	(d) Infant vaccination coverage	Vaccination is Mission Indradhanush's job; POSHAN targets stunting, undernutrition, anaemia and low birth weight.
Q12	(b) Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers	A classic exam trap: Jan Aushadhi sits outside the health ministry, under Chemicals and Fertilizers.
Q13	(b) Saksham Anganwadi and POSHAN 2.0	This 2021-22 merger is exactly the kind of rename/merge fact SSC likes to test.
Q14	(b) All citizens aged 70 and above	This 2024 expansion added universal senior citizen cover on top of existing family-based eligibility.
Q15	(b) PM-JAY provides health insurance, PMBJP sells affordable generic medicines	The two schemes sound alike but serve completely different functions under different ministries.