National Rural Health Mission

A programme launched by the Government of India in 2005 to strengthen rural public health infrastructure and reduce maternal, infant and child mortality, particularly in states with weak health indicators. Its signature mechanism was a nationwide cadre of village-level Accredited Social Health Activists, known as ASHAs, community health workers who link villagers to government health services, promote institutional delivery and immunization, and provide basic health education and referral. The mission also funded upgrades to rural health infrastructure and untied grants to local health facilities. It was associated with expanded institutional delivery and immunization coverage over its first decade, alongside continuing gaps in staffing, infrastructure and medicine availability documented by both government reviews and independent researchers. From 2013 it was folded into a broader National Health Mission covering both rural and urban India.