Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY) has once again come into discussion. This time news of fraud in this scheme has come to light. Suspicious payments worth crores of rupees for the treatment of beneficiaries under AB-PMJAY have been revealed in Bihar. This was revealed in the Performance Audit Report 2025 of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG), which was published on February 26, 2026.
Let us tell you that this scheme is a government health insurance plan which provides free treatment up to Rs 5 lakh every year to poor families. The CAG report specifically mentions payments made on inactive Ayushman cards and the amount spent on cards that were not even registered in the official database.
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Crores of rupees wasted on inactive cards
According to the report, 2,186 such cases were reported in the state where treatment claims were submitted using inactive Ayushman cards and a total of Rs 2.31 crore was paid. This means that money was given to hospitals even on cards which should not have been active in the system or were expired. The audit considered this a serious financial irregularity and raised questions about the basis on which claims were verified and paid when the cards were inactive.
The CAG investigation also revealed that 139 Ayushman cards were not even registered in the Beneficiary Identification System (BIS) database. Nevertheless, payments were made on these cards. Payments up to Rs 25.25 lakh were made on these database cards. This means that treatment claims were approved and funds were released in the name of beneficiaries whose names and card records were not present in the government system.
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According to the report, this case clearly shows that there is a big weakness in the IT system and monitoring system. The name and information of every beneficiary in the scheme should be approved only after checking in the digital system. But when the name was not registered in the database and yet payment was made, it raises serious questions.
It seems that either there was a technical glitch in the system or there was negligence on the part of the people responsible. Also, the possibility of mutual collusion in this cannot be ruled out.
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