The broad contours of the universe of likely beneficiaries of the ambitious National Health Protection scheme --code-named Ayushman Bharat -- emerged at a high-level meeting of state officials convened by the health ministry. Even though Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in his Budget speech said the scheme was expected to cover 100 million households, many officials have since clarified that the number of beneficiaries will be based on the Socio Economic Caste Census (SECC) data. The database of targeted beneficiaries is being created based on the SECC data, which has details of deprived households.
