Uber, the world's largest on-demand ride-sharing company and Ayushman Bharat, the world’s largest government healthcare scheme, on Friday announced a partnership to facilitate free healthcare for tens of thousands of driver and delivery partners, who earn a livelihood by using the Uber platform.

As per the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed with the National Health Authority (NHA), Uber, under its Uber CARE initiative for driver and delivery partners, will facilitate the setting up of Common Service Centres (CSC’s) at Partners Seva Kendras across India. CSC’s Village Level Entrepreneurs (VLEs) at these centers will help verify eligibility and issue e-cards to driver and delivery partners for the Ayushman Bharat Scheme, which provides Rs 500,000 of healthcare benefits for free secondary and tertiary treatment to each eligible family per year in government and empanelled private hospitals.

Dr Indu Bhushan, CEO, Ayushman Bharat – Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana, and National Health Authority (NHA) said that reaching out to the last mile beneficiary lies at the core of the goal of Ayushman Bharat PM-JAY of providing cashless quality inpatient care for serious illnesses with a view to protect more than 10 crore economically vulnerable families or 50 crore people from catastrophic healthcare expenditure that impoverishes more than 6 crore people every year. Through this partnership with Uber, they hope to reach out to lakhs of people and their families in the driver and delivery community to bring them the benefits of this transformative scheme and help secure their health and economic security, he said.

Driver and delivery partners will pay only Rs 30 to obtain an Ayushman Bharat card to provide access to the services under the scheme. They will not be required to pay any charges or premium for pre-hospitalisation, hospitalisation and post-hospitalisation expenses, which are all covered under the scheme. Each empanelled hospital is staffed by 'Pradhan Mantri Ayushman Mitras' or frontline healthcare workers to assist patients and facilitate their care at the hospital. They will also run a help desk and check documents to verify eligibility for the scheme.

Pradeep Parameswaran, President, Uber, India and South Asia, said that driver partners are at the heart of what they do and during their engagements with them, they have repeatedly mentioned the need for a stronger safety net, especially good healthcare. Their partnership with Ayushman Bharat, the largest government healthcare scheme in the world, caters to such a requirement. It underscores their commitment not just to driver and delivery partners, but also their resolve to facilitate healthcare benefits for their family members, he said.

Over the past few months, Uber has launched several initiatives and forged some high profile partnerships to showcase its commitment to driver and delivery partners. In January, Uber launched the Driver Safety Toolkit, a comprehensive set of in-app safety features for driver partners. Earlier, as part of Uber CARE, driver and delivery partners were provided access to life insurance and micro loans.