Ayushman Bharat Health Infrastructure Mission

Context

Recently, the Prime Minister launched the Ayushman Bharat Health Infrastructure Mission.

The mission is being touted as “India’s largest scheme to scale-up health infrastructure”.
It is one of the largest pan-India initiatives to strengthen health care infrastructure across the country.
- It is in addition to the National Health Mission.
It will provide assistance to 17,788 Rural Health and wellness Centers in 10 ‘highly focused’ states and establish 11,024 Urban Health and wellness Centers across the country.
In this regard, critical care services will be available in all the districts of the country with more than five lakh population through exclusive critical care hospital blocks, while the remaining districts will be covered through referral services.
Under this program, one national health center, four new national virology centers, the WHO (World Health Organization) South East Asia Region, nine bio-safety level-III laboratories, and five new regional disease control centers will be set up.
Objectives: To ensure a strong public health infrastructure in urban and rural areas, capable of responding to public health emergencies or outbreaks.
- Establish an IT-enabled diagnostic system through a network of monitoring laboratories at block, district, regional and national level.
  - All public health labs will be connected via the Integrated Health Information Portal, which will be extended to all states and UTs.