Dinesh Arora, director (health) at federal policy think tank Niti Aayog, was on Tuesday appointed director of the prime minister’s flagship healthcare programme, Ayushman Bharat, in the health ministry, people familiar with the matter said.
A government official involved with the project described Arora’s appointment as “the formalisation of a working arrangement” ahead of two-day consultations involving nearly 150 officials from the states and the Centre that will give a final shape to the National Health Protection Scheme (NHPS) – which envisages a Rs 5 lakh floating cover for nearly 100 million families or 500 million citizens.
The 41-year-old Arora, who had been working on the programme for more than a month before it was announced in the budget speech by finance minister Arun Jaitley on February 1, is a qualified doctor and has worked in public health in the past, heading the National Rural Health Mission in Kerala from May 2006 to September 2009. He moved to Niti Aayog in July.
