Discuss the significance of the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission in building India's Digital Public Infrastructure for healthcare. What challenges remain in ensuring equitable digital health access?

Q. Discuss the significance of the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission in building India's Digital Public Infrastructure for healthcare. What challenges remain in ensuring equitable digital health access? (15 marks, 250 words)

Launched nationwide on 27 September 2021, the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) extends India's Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) — after UPI and Aadhaar — to health, crossing 100 crore ABHA-linked health records by May 2026 [1]. Its significance is matched by persistent equity gaps.

Significance for healthcare DPI - Interoperable identity: the 14-digit ABHA creates portable, consent-based longitudinal records, aiding migrants and curbing duplicate diagnostics [3]. - Federated, not centralised: records are linked across facilities via a consent-manager architecture, mirroring the UPI/India Stack model rather than a single data vault. - Public-private ecosystem: 450+ health-tech solutions integrated, showing platform-led scale beyond government alone [1]. - Cooperative federalism: state-driven push, with Uttar Pradesh (~15 crore) and Andhra Pradesh leading linkages [1]. - Economic efficiency: digitised records streamline PM-JAY claims and reduce repeat tests.

Challenges to equitable access - Digital divide: uneven saturation — full ABHA coverage only in small UTs like Ladakh and Lakshadweep [2] — risks excluding rural, low-connectivity, and elderly citizens. - Data privacy: consent architecture must be tested against the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023. - Literacy and last-mile: linkage ≠ meaningful use where digital and health literacy are low. - Inter-state variance reflects unequal administrative capacity.

ABDM is a transformative DPI backbone, but scale must convert into inclusion. Bridging connectivity, literacy, and privacy safeguards — anchored in the DPDP Act and cooperative federalism — will make digital health a genuine enabler of universal health coverage.

(~250 words)

Sources: 1. 100 Crore Health Records Linked with ABHA under ABDM (PIB, 22 May 2026) — 100 crore linked records, 450+ integrations, leading states 2. ABDM Crosses 90 Crore ABHA Accounts Milestone (PIB, 2026) — account saturation, UT-level coverage 3. ABDM Three-Year Journey towards Digital Health (PIB) — launch dates, ABHA 14-digit identity, architecture