Months ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, the Narendra Modi government has received appreciation from the Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates on the first 100 days of the Ayushman Bharat Scheme. Gates also congratulated the government for providing healthcare benefits to 6.85 lakh people in such a short span of time.

In his tweet, Gates wrote, “Congratulations to the Indian government on the first 100 days of @AyushmanNHA. It’s great to see how many people have been reached by the program so far. @PMOIndia”

Ayushman Bharat is Narendra Modi government’s flagship healthcare scheme that aims to provide medical coverage to over 10 crore poor families.

Gates also has been a staunch supporter of the Modi government’s Aadhaar scheme.

In May 2018, Bill Gates, founder of one of the world’s biggest tech companies, Microsoft, came out out openly in support of the Aadhaar scheme saying the Aadhaar technology does not pose any privacy issue.

Not only that, he also appreciated Prime Minister Narendra Modi for fully “embracing” the scheme, which was initiated during the previous UPA regime.

The founder of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation had said his organisation has funded the World Bank to “emulate” the project as it is worth doing so. Bill and Melinda want other countries to also adopt the scheme. ”

On January 13 this year, Director General of World Intellectual Property Organisation Francis Gurry praised the Centre’s health scheme Ayushman Bharat and congratulated Prime Minister Narendra Modi on its success.

On January 1, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley termed Ayushman Bharat a “game changer” in healthcare and said on an average 5,000 claims are being settled every day since its rollout on September 23, 2018.

The total number of hospitals covered by this scheme is 16,000. More than 50 per cent of the implementing hospitals are in the private sector.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi in September 2018 launched the Ayushman Bharat- Pradhan Mantri Jan Aarogya Yojana which aims to provide a coverage of Rs 5 lakh per family annually, benefiting more than 10.74 crore poor families or over 50 crore people for secondary and tertiary care hospitalisation through a network of empanelled health care providers.

In October 2014, the billionaire had praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s emphasis on building more toilets in the country.

“Narendra Modi has India talking about toilets and that’s a great thing,” Gates said in a tweet which was retweeted by Modi.

On his blog, Gates said, “This is not the kind of issue that most politicians like to talk about. But I would guess that in the short time he has been in office, Prime Minister Modi has done more to raise the awareness of the need for toilets than any other leader since the country gained independence”.

Gates further said, “It may seem surprising when you think about all the innovation coming out of India, but 630 million people there defecate in the open because they don’t have access to a commode. Worldwide, the number is 2.5 billion people.”