Lucknow — Late on December 24, officers from the Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force fanned out across a residential pocket in Gomti Nagar, acting on weeks of surveillance and digital trail-mapping. By the end of the night, seven people had been taken into custody, accused of running a racket that allegedly created and sold forged Ayushman Bharat cards to unsuspecting residents.
According to the press note issued by the STF, the arrests followed a targeted operation aimed at dismantling a group suspected of abusing the Ayushman Bharat–Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY), India’s flagship health insurance scheme for the poor. Investigators said the group had been active across Lucknow and adjoining districts, using counterfeit cards to access treatment and siphon public funds.
The raid, conducted just before midnight, yielded stacks of documents, electronic devices and cash — the physical residue of what officials described as a well-organised operation.
Forging Access to a Welfare State
At the centre of the case is the Ayushman card, a gateway to cashless treatment under PM-JAY. Police allege that the accused exploited gaps in enrolment and verification processes to generate fraudulent cards, often by using altered identity documents or data lifted from legitimate beneficiaries.
The cards were then sold to patients who either did not qualify for the scheme or were unaware that the documents were forged. In some cases, investigators believe, the cards were used repeatedly to claim benefits at hospitals, converting a public health entitlement into a private revenue stream.
Officials said the operation relied on a mix of technical know-how and local intermediaries — individuals who sourced customers, collected documents and facilitated payments, blurring the line between fraud and desperation in a state where access to affordable healthcare remains uneven.
The Network Behind the Cards
The STF’s press note lists the accused as residents of Lucknow and neighbouring districts, with varied educational backgrounds — a reminder, investigators said, that such rackets are no longer the preserve of a single profile. Some were allegedly involved in generating cards, others in marketing them, and still others in coordinating hospital visits.
Among the items seized were multiple mobile phones, laptops, printers, biometric devices, forged Aadhaar and voter cards, and cash believed to be proceeds of the scam. Officials said the digital devices would be sent for forensic analysis to trace transaction histories and identify possible links to healthcare facilities or larger networks.
An FIR has been registered under provisions related to cheating, forgery, identity fraud and organised crime, and police said further arrests were possible as the investigation widens.
A Broader Strain on Public Trust
The case underscores a persistent vulnerability in India’s welfare delivery systems: the challenge of scale. PM-JAY is designed to serve hundreds of millions, but its very reach makes it attractive to those seeking to game the system.
For authorities, such frauds carry a dual cost — financial losses to the exchequer and erosion of trust in schemes meant for the most vulnerable. “Every fake card potentially denies treatment to someone who actually needs it,” a senior official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
As the STF continues to question the accused and map the flow of forged documents, the episode stands as a reminder that the success of welfare programmes depends not only on funding and intent, but on the integrity of the systems that deliver them — and the vigilance required to protect them.
