India’s transformation into a global health powerhouse

India has steadily evolved from a nation grappling with endemic diseases into a leading provider of affordable, high‑quality healthcare and medicines, and has emerged as a global health powerhouse, according to a PIB release outlining the country’s health‑policy achievements. The Government of India positions this trajectory as a core pillar of its broader Viksit Bharat ambition by 2047, grounded in universal health coverage, expanded medical education, and a growing role in global health‑security and biopharma innovation.
At the heart of the strategy is Ayushman Bharat, the Government’s flagship universal‑health‑coverage umbrella, which brings together multiple components to ensure access to free or low‑cost healthcare across primary, secondary, and tertiary levels. The centrepiece of this architecture is the Ayushman Bharat–Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB‑PMJAY), one of the world’s largest public‑health‑insurance schemes, providing coverage of up to ₹5 lakh per family per year for secondary and tertiary care hospitalisation for socio‑economically deprived families and senior citizens aged 70 and above. The scheme has significantly reduced out‑of‑pocket expenditure, with household savings reported in the PIB release at over ₹1.25 lakh crore in 2024–25.
Complementing AB‑PMJAY are Ayushman Arogya Mandirs (AAMs), the network of primary‑health‑care centres bringing preventive, promotive, and basic curative services closer to people at the community level. As of late February 2026, there are 1,84,235 AAMs across urban, rural, and tribal‑dominated regions, with teleconsultations accounting for hundreds of millions of consultations annually. These centres also host wellness‑focused activities such as yoga‑based health‑promotion and screening drives for non‑communicable diseases, reinforcing early‑detection and longitudinal care rather than only episodic treatment.
To strengthen health‑system preparedness, the Pradhan Mantri–Ayushman Bharat Health Infrastructure Mission (PM‑ABHIM) is upgrading district‑level hospitals, laboratories, and public‑health‑surveillance networks with a five‑year central outlay of about ₹32,928 crore. The mission links block‑, district‑, regional‑, and national‑level labs into a real‑time disease‑surveillance network, enhancing India’s capacity to detect, investigate, and respond to outbreaks and public‑health emergencies. Parallel to this, the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) is building one of the world’s largest digital‑health ecosystems, with over 863 million Ayushman Bharat Health Accounts (ABHA) created so far, enabling secure, interoperable health records and teleconsultation with registered professionals.
The Government has also expanded access to medicines through the Pradhan Mantri Bhartiya Janaushadhi Pariyojana (PMBJP), which offers 2,000 medicines and 315 surgical products at prices 50–90% lower than the market, and the Affordable Medicines and Reliable Implants for Treatment (AMRIT) network, which supplies critical hospital‑level drugs and implants at reduced rates. These initiatives, coupled with India’s position as the world’s third‑largest pharmaceutical producer by volume, have helped make the country a key supplier of generic medicines and vaccines to the Global South, including a large share of the world’s anti‑retroviral and routine‑vaccination needs.
India’s more recent steps, such as the nationwide single‑dose HPV‑vaccination drive for adolescent girls, the Biopharma SHAKTI programme to strengthen end‑to‑end biologics manufacturing, and the Strategy for AI in Healthcare for India (SAHI), signal a deliberate push toward integrating advanced technologies with traditional public‑health structures. Taken together, the PIB release frames these efforts as a transition from disease‑fighting to health‑building, with India increasingly positioned as a destination for medical tourism, digital health‑innovation, and globally relevant biopharma solutions.