Economic Survey: Ayushman Bharat, telemedicine, digital health transforming healthcare in India

India has made significant progress in health infrastructure and has expanded public health programmes to address healthcare delivery, according to the Economic Survey 2024-2025 tabled today in Parliament on the eve of Union Budget 2025-2026.

Government initiatives like Ayushman Bharat (AB), the PM-Ayushman Bharat Health Infrastructure Mission (PM-ABHIM), and the Free Drugs Service Initiative (FDSI) have transformed healthcare delivery, claims the Survey.

Under Ayushman Bharat scheme started in 2018, 1,75,560 Ayushman Arogya Mandirs (AAM) have been operationalised, patient screenings were done for hypertension (100.57 crore people), diabetes (88.65 crores), oral cancers (59 crores), breast cancers (26.95 crores), cervical cancer(17.69 crores), wellness sessions (4.74 crores) and held 31.86 crore teleconsultations.

The PM-ABHIM launched in October 2021 is being implemented over five years from FY22 to FY26, to strengthen the public health infrastructure to fill critical gaps in health infrastructure, surveillance, and health research. About 9,594 building-less Sub Centre-Health Wellness Centres (HWC), 2033 urban HWCs, 703 integrated public health labs and 577 critical care blocks have been operationalised till November 15, 20204.

The Survey says the Universal Immunisation Programme (UIP), providing life-saving vaccines to newborns and pregnant women annually, has become one of India's most impactful health initiatives and has achieved 93.5 per cent national coverage by FY24. Currently, the UIP offers 11 vaccines free of cost, protecting against 12 vaccine-preventable diseases. A child who has received Bacille Calmette Guerin (BCG), three doses of Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV), three doses of Pentavalent and one dose of Measles Rubella (MR) by the first year of age is called a fully immunised child. Over 1.7 crore pregnant women and 5.4 crore children are registered digitally and tracked more than 26.4 crore vaccine doses in real-time through the U-WIN portal, which tracks immunisation records.

The Jan Aushadhi scheme launched to provide affordable medicines achieved record sales in 2024 and expanded to over 14,000 kendras nationwide. E-Sanjeevani, the national telemedicine service, has emerged as the world's largest telemedicine implementation in primary healthcare. It has served over 31.19 crore patients. It operates through 1.29 lakh AAM (Ayushman Arogya Mandir) as spokes, which are served by 16,447 hubs and 676 online OPDs with the support of more than 2,25,286 doctors, medical specialists, super-specialists and health workers. The Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM), launched in September 2021 to create a national digital health ecosystem, has created 72.81 crore ABHAs (Ayushman Bharat Health Account) and 47.79 crore health records.

The Economic Survey also notes that drones are transforming healthcare in India by ensuring rapid delivery of life-saving medicines and collecting samples from remote and inaccessible areas, proving indispensable during emergencies.