Nagaland has 397 Ayushman Arogya Mandirs or Health and Wellness Centres as per the National Health Systems Resource Centre but many villages still lack such facilities.
The Government of India boasts of making significant strides in strengthening the country’s health system since 2014. One of the key programmes the Centre has been extensively promoting is the Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY), which was launched in 2018 with an objective to provide free and cashless healthcare services to economically vulnerable families. As per the government data, 36,218 hospitals across the country have been empanelled under this scheme, more than 12 crore hospitalisations covered and 44.14 crore Ayushman Cards created as on June 5, 2026. The Pradhan Mantri Bhartiya Janaushadhi Pariyojana is another scheme which was introduced to reduce the cost of generic drugs. The government has also highlighted the expansion of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), with the number increasing to 12, alongside efforts to scale up primary healthcare infrastructure and provide basic healthcare services closer to communities. There are now more than 1.86 lakh Ayushman Arogya Mandirs, formerly known as Health and Wellness Centres, in the country, according to the latest data. These include 1.34 lakh Sub Health Centres, 24,483 Primary Health Centres, 12,259 AYUSH centres, and more than 15,000 Urban Primary Health Centres and Wellness Centres. According to information available on the National Health Systems Resource Centre website, Nagaland has 397 Ayushman Arogya Mandirs.
There is no denying that millions of people have benefited from the ambitious AB-PMJAY programme and that it has significantly expanded public health coverage. The effort to increase the number of healthcare centres is also visible. However, the same cannot be said about the delivery of healthcare services in rural and remote areas. We continue to hear reports of villagers carrying patients on bamboo stretchers to reach the nearest health centre after rain-triggered landslides sever road access. It often takes natural disasters to expose the ground reality in remote areas, whether it is healthcare, infrastructure, or road connectivity. The contrast between what is recorded on paper and what exists on the ground can be stark. The ordeal faced by the people of Pessao village in Mon district is a case in point. With no healthcare facility in the village, and the proposed Primary Health Centre announced in 2021 failing to see the light of day, residents are left with little choice but to use classrooms of a private school and a waiting shed as makeshift wards whenever patients require treatment. Sadly, Pessao is not an isolated case. Many villages continue to lack functional health centres, while several existing facilities operate without adequate manpower. The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), in its report covering the period from 2017-18 to 2022-23 and tabled during the NLA budget session this year, also highlighted significant shortages of manpower, including specialists and nurses, even in district hospitals, as well as the uneven distribution of CHCs, PHCs and HSCs across districts. These realities underline the urgent need to bridge the rural healthcare gap. Expanding schemes and announcing facilities are important, but their success must ultimately be measured by the services people receive on the ground. Every village, particularly those in remote and difficult terrain, must have access to a functional primary healthcare system equipped with adequate manpower, medicines, medical equipment and basic infrastructure. Healthcare is a right; it should not be determined by geography.