The first centre opened at Jangla in Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district on 14 April 2018. Its place in Ayushman Bharat was different from the hospital cover that would become the programme’s better-known arm. The Health and Wellness Centre was meant to bring a broader range of routine care within reach of people’s homes. At the launch, the government set out to upgrade 1.5 lakh sub-centres and primary health centres. [1]
These facilities are now called Ayushman Arogya Mandirs, following a renaming directive in November 2023. Their story begins before that change of name, and before the 2018 inauguration: the existing primary-care network supplied the institutions, while the National Health Policy of 2017 set out the expanded model. [2] [5]
A broader job for the local centre
The programme sought to add services to a system long associated with maternal and child health and communicable-disease care. Its remit included chronic illnesses, mental health, care for older people and basic emergencies. This required more than a refurbished building. A community health officer at the sub-centre was intended to lead a team working with multipurpose health workers and ASHAs, support treatment and keep patients in follow-up. [2] [3]
The design also linked local care to higher facilities. Teleconsultations could obtain advice; referrals could move a patient onward; follow-up could bring care back to the community after a hospital visit. That two-way arrangement matters for an illness requiring repeated monitoring rather than a single consultation. It is a service model, whose functioning depends on the people and supplies behind it. [2]
By 31 December 2025, states and Union Territories had reported 1,82,944 centres operational on the programme portal. The health ministry presented that figure to the Rajya Sabha in February 2026. It records a substantial national rollout, chiefly by strengthening existing facilities; it is not a count of that many newly constructed clinics. [3]
The same reply described 12 service packages being introduced incrementally. It specified an expanded list of 172 medicines and 63 diagnostics for primary-health-centre AAMs, and 106 medicines and 14 diagnostics for sub-centre AAMs. Those lists set out what facilities should provide. They do not tell a patient whether a particular medicine was on the shelf on a particular day. [3]
What the visits found
The government’s 16th Common Review Mission, covering 19 states and Union Territories, reported improvements in access to primary care, screening and teleconsultations. It also found uneven progress. Urban centres faced problems with premises, staffing and laboratory services; remote areas faced terrain and connectivity constraints. State planning, budgets and recruitment helped explain different rates of implementation. [4]
The review therefore provides a more textured account than a national total. A facility could enter the operational count while still developing parts of its service package. The team’s visits identified real changes in access alongside the practical work needed to make those changes dependable. They were review observations, not a random national survey of patient outcomes. [4]
A study published in June 2026 examined 63 centres in Gujarat’s Bhavnagar district. Its inspections took place much earlier, from July 2021 to September 2022. The researchers found dedicated buildings at most sites and generally filled multipurpose-worker posts, but missing referral and other registers, and substantial gaps in equipment for eye and dental screening. [5]
The sample itself needs care. Researchers selected centres with an established community-health-officer posting and left out 12 where no officer was active during the study. The findings cannot establish staffing adequacy across the district, much less across India. They do show how an apparently functioning centre can still lack tools needed for its wider job. [5]
For patients returning month after month, continuity is the point of care close to home. A staffed room creates access. A working instrument, a usable referral record and a dependable medicine supply make the next visit worth taking. [2] [5]