Tenali: YSRCP chief YS Jagan Mohan Reddy announced here today that Andhra Pradesh, under his party would have healthcare initiatives without a parallel elsewhere in the country. Scaling up the Arogyasri scheme to an unprecedented level, YS Jagan said that the poor belonging to the state, can get themselves treated anywhere in the country at the expense of the AP government under Rajanna Rajyam. Expenditure on health amounting to over Rs.1000 would be covered by Arogyasri, he stated. The Leader of Opposition in Andhra Pradesh legislative assembly addressed a massive public meeting on the 130th day of his mass contact programme, Praja Sankalpa Yatra.

YS Jagan said that he was always mindful of the legacy he inherited from his father, the late Dr. YS Rajasekhara Reddy, in this regard, and would try to emulate him.
Healthcare would be a priority item in his Navarathnalu, on which governance in the state under YSRCP would be predicated, he remarked. Explaining the rationale behind Dr. YSR's groundbreaking healthcare initiative, he said that his father always pointed out that children's higher education and illness in the family drove the poor into debts and financial troubles. It was keeping this aspect of the lives of the suffering masses that he envisioned Arogyasri, YS Jagan recalled, outlining the historical circumstances under which it was launched under his father. Thousands of surgeries had been performed under Arogyasri and many lives saved, he recalled.

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However, Arogyasri fell victim to Chandrababu's politics of machinations and greed. Over the last four years, the AP CM scaled it down completely, so much so that treatment to the deprived from AP, was denied in hospitals in Hyderabad under the scheme.

YS Jagan announced that the needy would be given assistance to the tune of Rs. 10,000 in case of critical, life-threatening illnesses. Surgeries of the hearing impaired and speech impaired would be covered under the scheme, he stated. An extensive network of dialysis centres, as also chemo-therapy units would be built into the system at the mandal level, he asserted.