Three More Held for Issuing Fake Ayushman Bharat-PMJAY Cards in Gujarat

Ahmedabad: A former general manager of Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY) in Gujarat is among three individuals arrested by the Crime Branch on Friday. These accused are allegedly part of a racket that issued Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY) cards to ineligible individuals.

According to a Crime Branch statement, the arrested individuals include Shailesh Anand, a former general manager of PMJAY in Gujarat; Milap Patel, a contractual employee in Gandhinagar’s PMJAY office; and Nikhil Parekh, head of Enser Communication, an authorised outsourcing firm responsible for creating these cards.

The scam came to light during a Crime Branch investigation into the deaths of two PMJAY beneficiaries at Ahmedabad’s Khyati Multispeciality Hospital in November, following a failed angioplasty procedure. An official revealed that the trio’s involvement surfaced after the Crime Branch detained and interrogated six individuals, including Nimesh Dodiya, for allegedly tampering with the official PMJAY portal’s source code to issue cards to ineligible beneficiaries using the login credentials of an authorised outsourcing firm.

Dodiya, described as an ethical hacker, was hired by Khyati hospital management to create Ayushman Bharat cards for ineligible patients, charging ₹1,500–2,000 per card, according to the Crime Branch release. DeshGujarat