India Health 2030: Building Future-Ready Health Systems for Viksit Bharat

India’s health system has expanded its coverage architecture and strengthened its primary-care footprint over the last decade. This one-day convening in Kolkata organised by the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) will take a pan-India stock of health-system reform priorities, with an emphasis on what it will take to make reforms deliver consistently on the ground.

The next phase of universal health coverage (UHC) will be shaped by three hard problems: improving quality and continuity of care, especially for NCDs and mental health; strengthening affordability and financial protection as ageing accelerates and the disease burden shifts; and building prevention and resilience to climate and disaster shocks while using policy tools to reduce risk factors. Recent decisions underline this transition, including AB-PMJAY’s expansion to all citizens aged 70 years and above through Ayushman Vay Vandana (estimated to cover around 6 crore older Indians or roughly 4.5 crore families), continued scaling of Ayushman Arogya Mandirs and Jan Aushadhi Kendras (17,610 centres as of November 2025, with a target of 25,000 by March 2027), and emerging fiscal approaches intended to raise the tax burden on harmful products and widen fiscal space for health.

As the reform agenda matures, success will increasingly depend on execution capacity: strengthening the health workforce, improving referral linkages and continuity across levels of care, institutionalising measurement of quality and patient safety, and using digital and data systems to make outcomes visible at scale while protecting privacy and trust. The conference will bring together national and state level policy leaders, implementers, researchers, and partners to compare reform choices across India, share actionable lessons from state practice, and identify policy and implementation priorities for 2026–2030, with a deliberate focus on equity gaps, difficult geographies, and climate vulnerability.

Programme